October 2005 Archives

Goddamn, this woman likes vaginas! BadMimi, recently featured in The Chicago Tribune, has a whole website devoted to vagina-love.

While the commandment-style genital adoration is a bit much ("Thou shalt love your Vagina deeply and with reverence"), the products are pretty bad-ass.

So if you have a hankering to own a pussy pen or vagina candle, now you know where to go.

Personally I’m a big fan of the belt buckle (too tacky not to love) and this shirt. Cause really, who doesn’t heart vagina?

On Friday the Senate passed an amendment that would require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to continue gathering data on female workers.

In August, the bureau removed questions about working women from its monthly survey of payroll and employment data. A brilliant move. If the government doesn't collect data about women's earnings, we can't compare them to men's. That makes it all too easy for conservatives to say "What wage gap?" Without the numbers, it's pretty difficult for us to make the case that an earnings gap exists, let alone talk about ways to remedy it. So here's hoping the amendment makes it out of conference.

For more info see the National Council for Research on Women's report, Missing: Information About Women's Lives.

Thanks to Gwen for the heads up.

In addition to his indefensible opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Scalito's record is chock-full of information that should make every woman in America shudder. Happy Halloween:

Gender Discrimination
Alito has ruled in favor of a plaintiff in a sex discrimination case only once. In most instances, Alito issued opinions that made it far more difficult for victims of discrimination to get to court and prove their cases. In one sexual harassment case, Robinson v. City of Pittsburgh, a police officer filed a complaint that her supervisor was "unhooking her bra, snapping her bra strap, touching her hair and ears, telling her ‘you stink pretty,’ making comments about the size of her breasts..." The police chief took no action, and Robinson sued. Alito ruled that there was insufficient evidence that the chief knew of the harassment, even though Robinson had filed a report. (Alito issued similar opinions in Sheridan v. DuPont and Watson v. SEPTA.) Alito also struck down the anti-harassment policy of the State College Area School District in Saxe v. State College Area Sch. Dist. He wrote that "There is no categorical 'harassment exception' to the First Amendment's free speech clause." In other words, "harassment is protected speech!"

Family Leave
In 2000, Alito struck down portions of the Family and Medical Leave Act that would have allowed state employees to sue their states for failure to provide them with time off to care for family members. Alito wrote that a state's refusal to provide family leave has no greater impact on women than on men. (Chittester v. Dept. of Cmty. and Econ. Dev.) When the Supreme Court addressed the issue in 2003, it took the opposite position: that the FMLA does remedy historic discrimination against women, and state employees should be allowed to sue their employers for failure to comply.

Violence Against Women
Alito ruled that female public-schoool students who were physically and sexually abused by fellow students in class could not sue the state, because the state has no special duty in caring for them. (D.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Tech. School) Alito also participated in a panel holding that the Violence Against Women Act allows a court to order HIV/AIDS testing of a sexual assault defendant. (United States v. Ward)

For more on Scalito's record:
People for the American Way, Legal Momentum, Alliance for Justice and Legal Times.

UPDATE: Is That Legal? has the White House-approved responses to criticism of Alito's record. (via LiberalOasis)

NARAL Pro-Choice America has just posted some seriously troubling info on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Jr. and his record on choice:

Alito took pains to distant himself from the longstanding constitutional requirement that abortion restrictions must have exceptions when a woman's health is in jeopardy. He did so when ruling on a law that effectively banned abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy and lacked an exception to protect women’s health. The health exception is a fundamental tenet of Roe v. Wade, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about the need for the health exception this fall. Should Alito’s vote replace that of Sandra Day O’Connor, a fundamental right will likely be lost by next summer.

Alito has argued that significant restrictions on a woman's right to choose are constitutional. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Alito argued that all of the proposed law’s restrictions on a woman's right to choose – including a spousal notification provision struck down by the Third Circuit and, later, the Supreme Court – were constitutional. Alito dissented in part because he would have gone even further than the rest of the court.

Alito would uphold state laws that place significant roadblocks in the way of women seeking abortion care. Alito concurred with the majority’s opinion in Casey that concluded that “time delay, higher cost, reduced availability, and forcing the woman to receive information she has not sought,” although admittedly “potential burdens,” could not “be characterized as an undue burden.” This opinion practically ensures that he would never find any burden to be undue.

Dear lord.

Now, I didn’t like Maureen Dowd’s NY Times Magazine article for a number of reasons: Dowd’s assumption (once again) that feminism ended in back in the day, the reliance on dubious studies, and--as Amanda points out--Dowd’s seeming penchant to blame everyone and everything but patriarchal norms.

But what really struck me about What's a Modern Girl to Do? is the extent of Dowd’s elitism. Determining a social trend based completely on the lives of the upper class isn’t exactly new, but I expected a bit more from an article on feminism. (Silly me.)

(Not to mention, Dowd’s insistence on measuring feminism’s success based on men and how women are faring in the romance department completely nullifies any truth there might be in the article. As I’ve said before, feminism isn’t a fucking dating service.)

Dowd’s reporting on the backlash against feminism and the “confusion between the sexes” relies almost exclusively on women within her social circles. Seriously--the people Dowd cites to make her case seem to be a bunch of her friends and acquaintances. (Mostly reporters, producers and a couple of actors.)

Other sources Dowd uses are just as class-based: the debunked New York Times piece on young women at Yale, a "60 Minutes" report that interviews women who went to Harvard Business School, and Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book that focuses on women who are corporate executives.

Really, is Dowd so egotistical to think that only certain “successful” women determine current gender relations? Perhaps if she expanded her circle of friends--or actually tried to interview the lowly secretaries, assistants, and nannies who are supposedly stealing up all of the men--Dowd would see that the future of feminism goes beyond her backyard.

UPDATE: Echidne's excellent take on the article.

I’m not feeling particularly festive this year, so I thought I’d throw up a couple of pictures to cheer myself up. The one above is of my favorite costume from a party I had last year. (When there was still hope.)

Anyone dressing up feminist-styles this year? I know Samhita had Wonder Woman plans...now if I could just convince her to post a picture...

One more pic after the jump--inspired by a Feministing post!

Damn, Bushie--rush much?

From The Washington Post:

President Bush today named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito, 55, serves on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where his record on abortion rights and church-state issues has been widely applauded by conservatives and criticized by liberals.

Alito, appointed to the appeals court in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, has been a regular for years on the White House's short list for the high court. He was also among those proposed by conservative intellectuals as an alternative to Harriet Miers, the White House counsel who withdrew as the nominee last week.

Sounds like a real winner.

By the way, how did folks feel about this Oct. 28th NY Times headline: Bush Is Not Expected to Feel Need to Pick Woman Again? Cause it pissed me the fuck off.

This is a good little piece discussing the death of Rosa Parks and how we should not just remember her own work (which was incredible) but remember the role of women and girls throughout the civil rights movement. Sister Rosa was one of the few that became fixed in history. But let us not forget the resistences of other women that worked towards making this country somewhat tolerable, but not written about in the history books.

Check it.

This is so intense.

Amnesty International is renewing its call on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for wartime crimes against women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Don't tell me not to be suprised. No matter how many times we report crazy stats like this, I am suprised, shocked and deeply disturbed.

Sexual violence is increasingly prevalent in Kenya and police statistics show that more than 2,800 cases of rape were reported in 2004 - an increase of close to 500 compared to the previous year.

Domestic violence is also a serious problem in the East African nation. A demographic health survey carried out by the Ministry of Planning in 2003 revealed that at least half of all Kenyan women had experienced violence since the age of 15, with close family members among the perpetrators.

And these are only instances that are reported.

Women who have been sexually or domestically abused are often too scared by the stigma attached to the crime to tell their families, let alone report their attacks to the relevant authorities.

"Stigma is such a big issue in many cultures. Women and girls blame themselves and fear that they will be ostracised from society if they admit to being raped, and they often are outcasts if they do so," Njogu said.

There has been some work towards helping this situation. In the spring the government passed the Sexual Offences Bill that will seek to reform existing laws. They have also opened a battered women's shelter in Nairobi.

One shelter!

According to this study, teenage pregnancy has gone done by 50% in the the last 25 years, but women in their 20's seem to be giving birth out of wedlock more frequently. Perhaps the oppressive nature of being in wedlock for many women is losing its appeal.

A record number of babies — nearly 1.5 million — were born to unmarried women in the U.S. last year. And those moms were more likely to be 20-somethings than teenagers, according to new federal data released Friday.

Teenagers, who accounted for 50% of unwed births in 1970, accounted for 24% of unwed births in 2004.

One researcher found this to be a troubling trend because many of these women have low income status. This is a really complicated issue, because financial obstacles to single parenting are real. But, I also think many women are realizing that the dream of happy white picket fence does not exist except for a select few groups of people, so it is not worth waiting for it.

This last year three of my closest friends had babies and none of them were married, all in their mid-20's and none of them rich, and they are totally happy raising the child on its own.

Oooh, this good! Bloggers such as Liu Man Yin aka Lost Sparrow, are breaking and shaking cultural taboos about talking sex in the public sphere with their openly so so sexual blogs.

Liu's outspoken posts about sex include a "bedside encyclopedia" of love-making noises, broken down by the type of response it can elicit from your lover, and by geographical regions in China -- that is, how pillow-talk may sound in regional dialect or slang. She talks openly about masturbation ("I have no worldly possession, except for two vibrators") and muses about why men are afraid to say "I love you."

Am loving it!

Liu is the latest of a string of Chinese women bloggers who have become famous, some even worldwide. They talk about sex and relationships openly, changing the dialogue between the sexes. In a culture where sexual attitudes are still repressive, the racy details shared by the women bloggers are thrusting them into the spotlight, despite China's most recent crackdown on the Internet news media.

Anyway, this is rad. My favorite line...

"Nowadays, if you're on a date with a Chinese man, the first thing that comes out of his mouth would be, 'You're not going to blog about me, are you?'" she says.

HA!

And that’s an understatement.

It looks like Jean Van de Velde, who lost the British Open in 1999, is apparently upset about the decision by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R &A) to allow women to qualify for the Open. In retaliation to this preposterous idea that women should be allowed to play with men, he’s applying to play in the Women’s Open next year, reports Reuters.

Van de Velde's feelings are that the R & A should be attending “more important matters,” and questions why women would even want to enter a competition they would have no chance of winning. “Where do we draw the line?” he asks.

“If they allow me to, I’ll definitely go and play, just to make a point. I would be very happy to use the ladies locker room.” He also jokingly said he would shave his legs and wear a kilt if it meant him being able to enter the competition. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Former Ryder Cup player Barry Lane is applauding Van de Velde, saying that “If 100 men decided to take the same stance and they all qualified off the ladies’ tees, they could take most of the Women’s British Open’s spots.”

A bit cocky, are we? So if that’s true, why are they so up in arms about women entering the tournament? After all, they’re going to lose anyway, right?

Sounds like our Frenchman is the sore loser to me. I could go on, but I don’t trust myself with this potty mouth of mine.

Check out the Younger Women’s Task Force’s (YWTF) new website, which was recently launched in their efforts to organize and advance the rights of younger women. Sounds like our kind of ladies!

A while back, Jessica posted on her and Lauryn’s visit to one of their meetings in D.C. Since then, this project of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO) has expanded significantly, for one by starting chapters across the nation.

If you’re interested in joining, take a look and see if a chapter is in your area.

Wendy Wright of our favorite anti-feminist group, Concerned Women of America (CWA), recently stated that there is a link between the higher rate in incarcerated women and the feminist agenda; in other words, we caused the shit.

While we’ve known that the number of women in prison has been increasing for quite some time, Wright claims that we’re leading American women away from the family and into lives o’ crime. After all, what else would we do with ourselves without men and babies?

She says that feminist ideology’s “radical individualism” tells women they shouldn’t be dependent on others, leading them to illegal activities “where they're forced to fend for themselves." I thought that was pretty funny considering the fact we’ve posted before on how Marc Mauer from The Sentencing Project blames this increase of incarceration on dependence itself:

“it coincides exactly with the inception of the war on drugs…It represents a sort of vicious cycle of women engaged in drug abuse and often connected with financial or psychological dependence with a boyfriend.”

Thoughts?

This is just one pic of many from this forward that someone had the audacity to send me this week.

Check out the rest of the pics below, the last one is my favorite. While I usually ignore forwards such as these, I couldn’t help gritting my teeth when it said at the bottom, “Make another women’s day, and share the smiles.” I just had to share.

I know nothing makes me happier than making fun of how incompetent and shallow us ladies are. Good times!

While I find high school homecoming court crap to be a tad ridiculous, I was pleased to find that Lincoln High School’s football team has a female kicker who, during halftime, walked across the field in her uniform to be crowned. Awesome.

Lentz is a senior at the school in Charleston, West Virginia, and decided to join the football team this past summer. “I’m the only girl, but it doesn’t bother me.” says Lentz. “The guys do a really good job of holding the line back.” I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool.

It seems like this kick-ass, er, kicker deserves some royal treatment.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) released a really great report yesterday titled, “Tools of the Trade: Using the Law to Address Sex Segregation in High School Career and Technical Education.”

The report contains data from twelve different states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Washington -- showing how female high school students are continuously underrepresented in nontraditional courses for their gender. In result, they suffer economically because of the fact that traditionally “male” occupations pay more. (Let’s not even add the wage gap on top of that disparity.)

The great thing about the report is that not only does it bring this issue to light, but also offers twelve state-specific toolkits that directly examine the laws in each state that are relevant to this problem.

Depressing report, great cause. Click here to read it.

You’ve gotta love how deluded people can be:

The Ku Klux Klan plans to rally in Austin to support the gay marriage amendment set for the Nov. 8 ballot.

The rally planned on the steps of city hall the Saturday before the election will urge voters to favor proposition 2.

However, some who support proposition 2 don't welcome the KKK's assistance.

One such person is Pastor Ryan Rush of Bannockburn Baptist Church.

Rush said that a group that would come in that is characterized as hateful and bigoted is not welcome in this city. He said he doesn't want the Klan as a partner on any cause.

Cause it doesn’t make any sense that a hateful and bigoted group would support a hateful and bigoted amendment.

I guess some people who would vote against same sex marriage fancy themselves civilized haters; they’re not tacky, in-your-face bigots. Ugh.

In a way, I’m almost glad the Klan is planning this rally. Let those fuckers who would vote for the amendment know who their bedfellows are--and have to look them straight in the sheets.

Check out the latest from Mikhaela Reid, What's Your Fantasy?

Mine involves a Ad Rock-John Stewart hybrid.

Bluetooth technology has come to sex toys (and all of a sudden I want to become more tech-savvy).

“The Toy” is controlled by text messages sent to your vibrator.

From Gizmodo:

Basically, it’s “worn internally” (let’s leave that one alone, shall we?) and when an SMS is sent from the phone it’s linked up to, it turns into vibrations, depending on what has been written (each letter has a different effect). Again, I’m going to leave that to your imagination. Oh, and in case you’re worried that your Bluetooth Vibrator is going to show up on everyone’s list of bluetooth devices, don’t fret. It will only show up on the one phone it’s linked to.

That’s too bad, I was hoping for some risqué three-way calling action.

From The Washington Post:

In announcing the decision, Miers and President Bush cited their concern with the requests of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for documents dealing with her work as White House Counsel that the administration has chosen to withhold as privileged.

But the Miers nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was in deep trouble, with little support in the Senate, open criticism from many Senators of both parties, and an outpouring of opposition from conservative activists and intellectuals.

Miers told the president in a letter of withdrawal that she was "concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interests of the country."

Bush responded that he was "reluctantly" accepting the decision.

Wow.

WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes, a forward for the Houston Comets, came out in the most recent issue of ESPN The Magazine.

From The New York Times:

[Swoopes,] the three-time Most Valuable Player of the W.N.B.A., disclosed today that she is gay, an announcement that she described as lifting a burden from her, and one encouraged by an endorsement she received from a cruise line that caters to lesbians.

...She is the first high-profile African-American basketball player to come out as gay.

"I was at a point in my life where I am just tired of having to pretend to be somebody I am not. I was basically living a lie. For the last seven, eight years, I was basically waiting to exhale."

"Hopefully, this will not have a negative effect on the W.N.B.A.," Swoopes said. "Me coming out does not change what the W.N.B.A. stands for as a basketball league. I don't think there's any secret that the huge support we get comes from the gay and lesbian community. It's unfortunate that people, and those not only in W.N.B.A., are not able to feel like they can be who they are. They lose endorsements; they lose friends and family."

Swoopes also talked about her concern over the lack of well-known gay African Americans who have come out, and the effect her coming out will have on her younger fans:

My biggest concern is that people are going to look at my homosexuality and say to little girls -- whether they're white, black, Hispanic -- that I can't be their role model anymore.

I don't want that to happen. Being gay has nothing to do with the three gold medals or the three MVPs or the four championships I've won. I'm still the same person. I'm still Sheryl.

NYT reports...

On the day the Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers was expected to submit more complete answers to a Senate questionnaire, she was instead confronted with more questions about her legal views on abortion and how she would approach cases involving President Bush's military policies.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Ms. Miers, in a 1993 speech in Dallas, spoke approvingly about a trend toward "self-determination" in resolving debates about law and religion, including those involving abortion rights and religion in public schools and public places.

"The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual woman's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion," Ms. Miers said, according to a copy of the speech. "Questions about what can be taught or done in public places or public schools are presented frequently to the courts."

Ms. Miers continued, "The underlying theme in most of these cases is the insistence of more self-determination. The more I think about these issues, the more self-determination makes the most sense. Legislating religion or morality we gave up on a long time ago."

She added later, "When science determines the facts, and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act."

This is naturally fueling quite a bit of controversy, such as our not so fave gal pals Concerned Women for America, who have immediately said she is not a qualified enough candidate and have joined in the complicated and frequently sexist Miers backlash.

They are SO predictable, but f them. What do we think about this?

Iran has banned foreign films promoting secularism, feminism, unethical behavior, drug abuse, or violence. The ban was approved by the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council headed by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. It is still not clear how strictly the ban will be enforced and how it will affect the film industry inside the country.

Can you guess which one?

Three female journalists recieved awards for bad ass journalism. via AP...

An Associated Press war photographer from Germany, a crime reporter from Bangladesh who was stabbed and beaten, and the founder of a magazine threatened with closure by Iran's government because of its coverage of women's rights all received Courage in Journalism Awards Tuesday from the International Women's Media Foundation.

This is bad-ass.

Sumi Khan, of the Samakal daily, is one of only a few women journalists in Chittagong and has received many threats over the nature of her work.

"No, I'm not. They are afraid. I believe my pen is mightier than all of their weapons. Long live courageous journalism."

Khan survived a near death attack and continues writing. If it were not for this type of journalism and the bravery of women like this, we wouldn't have a line to write. Straight, gangsta.

Despite all of the negative comments about Salon’s new Broadsheet, I’m loving it. This interview with Nan Mooney, author of "I Can't Believe She Did That! Why Women Betray Other Women at Work," is especially interesting:

There was a time when women were just breaking into these professional areas, when, yes, it was important that they give the appearance of supporting each other. It was an us-against-them setup. But one of the great victories of the feminist movement is that now we form an impressive, powerful professional body and we can start looking within that body at what the dynamics are.

True, it’s not fun to talk about women making things difficult for each other. But it happens. I know I’ve witnessed women sabotage other women (both intentionally and unintentionally) in the workplace— and also in overtly feminist settings.

Women in the workplace have a generation gap that men don't have. We joined the workforce so recently that women who came in 20 years ago really are having an entirely different work experience than women today.

The book presents a good opportunity to talk about how one of the things that second-wave feminists pushed so hard for-- more women in positions of power in the workplace-- has played out for women of younger generation(s).

Ladies, is it easier to work with/for men than women? And, at the risk of sounding like a human-resources video, any suggestions on how to collaborate with female coworkers and still retain your competitive edge?

For the bored and curious, Mooney's website has a quiz, Are you at risk for on the job betrayal?

The Houston Chronicle had a great piece yesterday on the Women’s Bassmaster Tour (WBT). Of course, I immediately thought of the lovely Vanessa (above). When we were kids, she was terrifyingly gleeful as she stuck dirt-covered worms on fishing hooks while I cowered in the corner of our cousin’s boat. Ew.

My fishing-fear aside, seems like women are making great progress in pro bass fishing. While the top men in the sport still earn much more than the women, author Doug Pike believes that this could change:

Maybe this time, maybe in this sport, there's a chance that women and men will compete on equal ground (or water, as the case may be) for equal money. Men don't cast any farther or straighter than women, and nobody could argue straight-faced that either sex is better equipped intellectually to know when or where or why bass bite.

The WBT is on a roll, and women will be quick to benefit from this fledgling relationship. With the superpowers of ESPN and the Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society in their corner, they have an unprecedented opportunity.

This is the best shot women have ever had at shining bright lights on themselves and their angling abilities, and my guess is that they'll make the most of it. To have any chance at equality, they eventually will have to mix it up with the men. Each of them is ready.

Nice. Now if they could only do something about the worm-factor.

Anyone notice something a bit screwy about today's word of the day from Dictionary.com:

virago \vuh-RAH-go; vuh-RAY-go\, noun:
1. A woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.
2. A woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered, quarrelsome, or overbearing.

What the hell?

Thanks to contributor Jess Wakeman for sending this along!

From Code Pink Women for Peace:

The sad day is here when the 2000th US soldier has died in Iraq. As we mourn for the 2000 dead and over 25,000 wounded U.S. troops, we must also consider the more than 100,000 dead and wounded Iraqis.

HOW MANY MORE MUST DIE? We must again remind people of the human cost of this war and call for the troops to come home now.

Who would have thought that Orlando Bloom and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline would ever have something in common? Both the actor and the anti-choice litigator are featured in the November issue of GQ magazine. (Orlando has better hair though.)

The nine-page article carries the headline, "This man will do anything to stop abortion."

The author of the article is GQ correspondent Andrew Corsello, who focused much of his attention on a lengthy dinner conversation he had with Kline and Kline's wife about abortion.

The second page of the piece bears an image of a fetus with a subhead that says "Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline says he wants to get people talking honestly about abortion, to make people think about abortion. So why has he become the most aggressive abortion litigator in the land, subpoenaing the medical records of abortion clinics and prying into our private sexual histories? Meet the future of the pro-life movement."

What I find bizarre: Kline’s spokesman Whitney Watson said Kline was “pleased with the article.” Pleased? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Kline has no shame.

Check out this review from Bookslut:

Some recent books highlight girlhood’s splendor, and with them comes an increasing awareness surrounding two very important facts. The first is that our preparation for womanhood and the formation of ideas about being female begins long before its actual onset. The second: Barbie is an absolute slut.

Wait, so my Barbie wasn’t the only one who slept with Ken and never married him?

Having been raised by decidedly non-feminist parents, Barbies were a major part of my childhood. And even though there are a slew of reasons for feminists to detest Barbie, I really don’t think I was warped by her. Sure, my Barbie wore bikinis and miniskirts. But she also wore Ken’s sweaters sometimes. Her red convertible was one sweet ride. And she liked going out with both Ken and Derek (who played backup to her lead guitar in Barbie and the Rockers).

According to Sharon Lamb’s The Secret Lives of Girls, Barbie’s been dry humping Ken and even dabbled in some soft-core S&M for years now: “Barbie dolls help girls express what they don’t have words for yet, chiefly their sexual interest, which helps them to distance themselves from it at the same time. They can remain good girls while Barbie is the slut.”

Ok, I haven’t been through enough therapy to know if I was acting out some sort of virgin/whore thing with my dolls. But I do know that Barbie was probably my introduction to sex. When my friend Dana-- who was two years older and had a big sister-- put Barbie and Ken in the missionary position, it was my cue to ask all sorts of questions. By the time my mom sat me down years later to tell me where babies come from, I’d already learned everything from Barbie. (Well, from Dana. But you get the idea.)

Now Barbie serves as a cerebral landmark along our path to womanhood, an object we can recall when we need to remember our own history.

You can make lots of convincing arguments about the ways Barbie’s unattainable physique plants seeds of self-hatred in young girls. But Barbie did OK by me. I chose her over baby-dolls every time, because she ran the show. There was no one telling her to pick up her toys or eat her peas. I loved Barbie because she was a grown-up, even if I didn’t understand anything about adulthood yet. Least of all, sex.

I finally got around to reading some of the briefs submitted in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the parental notification case that the Supreme Court will hear November 30.

This brief-- submitted on behalf of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Break the Cycle, and other groups—- makes the vital point that parental notification is dangerous or impossible for abused and neglected teens. It got me thinking about the politics of anti-violence and repro-rights groups working together.

Anti-violence organizations bring a lot of political weight when they stand up on choice issues (like those presented in Ayotte). And that weight is largely due to the fact that they are perceived to be somewhat neutral in the abortion debate. I can’t decide if this is a good thing. I mean, I don’t want to see anti-violence legislation dragged down because it contains pro-choice positions. But I get frustrated when the DV/sexual assault community isn’t more vocal on these issues.

Take, for example, the lack of an emergency contraception provision in the Health Care Response title of VAWA. Anti-violence groups didn’t want to see the bill bogged down in a polarizing debate on choice, so they didn’t include a national protocol for making EC available to rape victims. (Rep. Carolyn Maloney introduced just such an amendment, but the provision was dropped. VAWA advocates wouldn't have backed it, anyway.)

I understand there are good reasons for this. Of course I’d rather have a VAWA with no EC provision than have no VAWA at all. And anti-violence groups have found other ways stand up for choice-- like submitting court briefs. Still, I wish we didn’t have to compromise at all. Because these issues are intertwined, whether or not it's politically acceptable to acknowledge that.

Warner Todd Huston at Renew America says Feminism has become silly, maybe even dangerous.

Funny, I would say the same thing about his mustache.

Groovy Q, makers of Dirty Linens products, have a super cute new pattern (with an unfortunately cheesy name) Girl Power. You can get it in sheets, lounge pants, boxers, and even wrapping paper.

I am a sucker for anything kitschy or pinup girl related--I just can’t help myself. (My birthday is next week, so I’m hoping my conspicuous gift-hinting will be successful.)

Kind of.

This headline cracks me up, Want more sex? Do the dishes!

But the sentiment is right on. I don’t think it’s news that women are less likely to want to have sex with a guy who sits on his ass while they’re busy cleaning the whole house. It’s so simple and logical, but for some reason guys need a reminder every once in a while.

But a new study shows that there are other benefits to men sharing the housework load besides getting laid more often:

...a new study has found that women aren’t merely more accommodating of the advances of men who help them – they actually find them more attractive.

...What’s more, children of dads who do their fair share of the cleaning will help with housework themselves. And, says the study, these children are likely to grow up more socially aware and better adjusted. They’re also more likely to have friends and less likely to be depressed or withdrawn at school than their counterparts whose fathers don’t help out around the home.

Fathers who did a share of housework were also more likely to show affection towards their children.

Good stuff.

Via Alternet's The Mix.

Does it amaze anyone else that people still have to be told that discrimination is illegal?

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex more severely if it involved homosexual acts, saying "moral disapproval" of such conduct is not enough to justify the different treatment.

In a case closely watched by national groups on all sides of the gay rights debate, the high court said the law "suggests animus toward teenagers who engage in homosexual sex."

Matthew R. Limon,18, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for having consensual sex with a 14 year-old boy. (Had the sex been with a girl, the maximum sentence for Limon would have been 15 months.)

Limon will now be resentenced--but he has already served more than five years. For having sex.

Amanda brings up a great point about consent laws, something that has always bugged me:

There's just too many examples of teenage couples with small age gaps getting in trouble for being interracial or gay or just not being the two kids that the parents wanted to see with each other. Then you have the flip side, with couples with alarmingly big age gaps being accepted because they fit into the patriarchal standard, such as the situation where the community supported a 13-year-old marrying a 22-year-old who had gotten her pregnant.

Unbelievable.

Salon launched Broadsheet today, a “cheeky” women’s blog:

The issues we'll tackle are limitless, really, given the fact that our subject includes half the world's population. Katie Holmes' pregnancy, Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination, the FDA's stalling over Plan B -- we've got something to say about all of it. Our goal is to be opinionated about topics that affect women, but also a filter by which we can look at the news from a (mostly) female point of view.

Awesome. Check out one of today’s posts, Rockettes refused maternity leave.

Really sad.

From the Associated Press:

Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.

Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

...Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

Among many other honors, Parks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal.

In 2000, Parks said "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die -- the dream of freedom and peace."

In a recent issue of the Journal of Popular Culture, authors James K. Beggan of the University of Louisville and Scott T. Allison of the University of Richmond argue that the women of Playboy magazine are getting “tougher.”

Beggan and Allison...found a pattern to the way that Playboy's wordsmiths described the women who graced the magazine's centerfold. They were typically strong, career-oriented, aggressive and, in a surprising number of instances, downright "tough." Adjectives suggesting vulnerability, submissiveness or passivity appeared less frequently.

But are these women really as they were described? Perhaps not, Beggan acknowledges. But it doesn't matter: "This is the image of them that is being presented to men."

OK, but is the text describing the Playboy models really what men are paying attention to? If a woman is posed in a vulnerable an submissive position in her picture, I think that’s going to trump any “aggressive” text descriptions.

I couldn’t access the whole article--Tough Women in the Unlikeliest of Places: The Unexpected Toughness of the Playboy Playmate--but I’m also curious as to how the authors define what kind of language is ‘tough’ and what is ‘passive’.

Thanks to Rebel Dad for the link.

UPDATE: Check out Hugo for a more analytical take on the study.

Ellen Goodman's latest column takes on Miers's woman problem, namely the problems everyone seems to have Miers. She just can’t win.

Call me a cockeyed pessimist, but I'm having trouble finding any good news in the trashing of Harriet Miers. Somehow Harriet has become proof that we have moved on to a great gender-free utopia, a postfeminist world in which we can now mercilessly tear down a woman without fear of being labeled a sexist piglet. First we were told that Miers got the nod as a woman. Now we are told that the full-scale attack proves she is one of the boys. Tina Brown even wrote: ''The healthiest aspect of the Harriet Miers nomination is that women haven't rallied to her cause." Whoopee.

I'm not a big fan of Miers, but I do not see her as proof of the arch prediction that equality would be the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men. So I can't sign on with those who see the slashing of Miers by women as a sign of progress for women.

Goodman goes on to point out that Miers is getting it from both sides, but unlike a male candidate, a lot of the criticism is gender:

In the middle we have assorted raps on her dress code (Talbots), on her marital status (single), on her work ethic (workaholic), even on her devotion to detail. Yet when Laura Bush cried sexism, she was derided as retro.

...It's no wonder that television's first female commander in chief was cast as an independent. It's no wonder that Geena Davis got criticized anyway -- for her lipstick.

What I really liked about this piece was that Goodman isn’t saying women should support Miers by virtue of her sex, but that we shouldn’t ignore sexism just because it’s targeted at an opponent. But this is my fave quote: It's self-deceptive to think we're in a postfeminist world when we never tried a feminist world.

Children of the Corn, watch your asses--these girls scare the shit out of me. Think the Olsen twins meets the KKK. Yeah, I’m serious.

Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans.

They may remind you another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx are cultivating a much darker personna. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

Known as "Prussian Blue" -- a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes -- the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white ... we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

This is so fucking disgusting. Ted Shaw, president of the NAACP, says “It really breaks my heart to see those two girls spewing out that kind of garbage,” and notes that the twins are just regurgitating the hate their parents taught them.

What is truly sad is that these kids are being used as a way to build support for racists:

...Since they began singing, the girls have become such a force in the white nationalist movement, that David Duke -- the former presidential candidate, one-time Ku-Klux-Klan grand wizard and outspoken white supremacist -- uses the twins to draw a crowd.

Prussian Blue supporter Erich Gliebe, operator of one of the nation's most notorious hate music labels, Resistance Records, hopes younger performers like Lynx and Lamb will help expand the base of the White Nationalist cause.

"Eleven and 12 years old," he said, "I think that's the perfect age to start grooming kids and instill in them a strong racial identity."

Yeah, cause it would be a real shame to let kids grow up not being racists. Terrifying.

Via Gawker who had this to say about the above photo's caption: Sure, some call it dangerous. But others find White Nationalism just fills them with warm fuzzies.

For practice, apparently.

Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay says women "can't cook to save their lives." I’m not liking where this is going...

Ramsay, star of reality show Hell’s Kitchen, went on:

"I've been visiting ladies' houses up and down the country with our film crew and you would be amazed how little cooking the girls are doing," the chef said ahead of the launch of his latest television show.

"Seriously, there are huge numbers of young women out there who know how to mix cocktails but can't cook to save their lives, whereas men are finding their way into the kitchen in ever growing numbers.”

Thoughts?

While Katrina continues to remain in the headlines, thanks to the New York Times’ daily “Storm and Crisis” section, along with continued interest by MSNBC and CNN, it seems that the faces of those who struggled through our government’s ineptitude have all but disappeared. Chertoff, Bush, and even Brownie can’t seem to escape the limelight, but I can’t help but feel that our nation’s (or perhaps just our media’s) attention to the people who were either unable or too poor to leave New Orleans has vanished.

It’s been seven weeks since Katrina hit, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to find new places to live, jobs to pay bills, and schools to attend. Where are their stories? Attention stays on the white men who wield the policy, placing blame and cutting deals with corporations to rebuild. Meanwhile, those who endured the inhumanity due to non-existent policies and callous leaders are once again left behind. Where are the voices of those who lived the horrors of the Superdome and rode the buses out of the city? Where are the details of what it’s like to rebuild one’s life in Houston or Dallas or Baton Rouge? Where is the discussion about our nation’s poverty crisis? Once again, our country has managed to de-prioritize its people for the sake of policy and sweep the real social issues of the extreme rich/poor gap that plagues our country neatly under the rug and out of the news.

Contributed by Cheryl Bratt.

I don't know if any of you remember, but Cheryl wrote this amazing piece shortly after Katrina for us.

We gotta remember, we spend so much time reading the news (critically), sometimes it is important to look at what is straight up, strategically left out of public news discourse.

According to this study the same obstacles women faced when they were first "allowed" to enter the workforce, are still present.

via Seattlepi (clearly one of my favorite papers:)

Thirty years after women began joining the work force in large numbers, many are hitting the "mommy wall" when they try to return to work after having children.

Unprepared for the obstacles they face on their return, many opt out of traditional corporate jobs and move to smaller companies. Experts dub the trend the "female brain drain" and say the exodus is coming just as businesses need talented, experienced workers to fill the gap as baby boomers prepare to retire en masse, leaving the biggest labor shortage in history in their wake.

I hate big dramatic terms like "biggest shortage in history," to totally freak everyone out and like the economy is going to collapse and they are all gonna laugh at us or whatever. But this is an extremely problematic situation. How can we still hold having babies against women? And what about single moms that need to work? What barriers are they facing?

Just to update on our recent post on women in the prison system, there have been some new findings on the actual statistical make-up of inmates.

via Seattlepi...

Women made up 7 percent of all inmates in state and federal prisons last year and accounted for nearly one in four arrests, the government reported Sunday.

The country's state and federal prison population - 1,421,911, which excludes state and federal prisoners in local jails - grew 2.6 percent in 2004, compared with an average growth of 3.4 percent a year since 1995.

Are people just getting more privy to criminal activity or is this just subversive slavery?

Let's see...

The Sentencing Project said the continued rise in prisoners despite falling crime rates raises questions about the country's imprisonment system. The group said the incarceration rate - 724 per 100,000 - is 25 percent higher than that of any other nation.

Blacks made up an estimated 41 percent of inmates with a sentence of more than one year, the report said.

If you don't know, now you know...

What do you think about this?

In May, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education posted the inevitable culmination of a trend: Last year for the first time, women earned more than half the degrees granted statewide in every category, be it associate, bachelor, master, doctoral or professional.

Before you answer, consider the perspective of Jim McCorkell, founder of Admission Possible, a St. Paul program to help low-income high school kids prepare for college. Last year, 30% of the students were boys. This fall, that has inched up to 34%, but only because "we actually did a little affirmative action," McCorkell says. "If we had a tie (between a male and a female applicant), we gave it to a boy."

Because the second we may see a disparity in gender balance with respect to men, we must rememdy it IMMEDIATELY!

Is this trend true? If it is what could be causing it?

Read the article (note, try and ignore their description of affirmitive action as "murky") and let us know what you think or what your experiences have been.

Also,

UCLA higher education professor Linda Sax says such a discussion should address what effect, if any, the gender composition of a college has on men and women. To find out, she examined data from more than 17,000 students at 204 four-year colleges.

Preliminary results show that on campuses that were predominantly female, both men and women got higher grades. Predominantly female campuses also led to a "significant increase" in men's commitment to promoting racial understanding and led males to more liberal views on abortion, homosexuality and other social issues, her research found.

Is it just me, or does the logo for the Independent Women's Forum's College Essay Contest look more like a douche ad than a call for papers?

Or maybe I'm just being bitchy.

Kathryn Jean Lopez at The National Review thinks we're "nuts" to be pissed over Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield's recent comments. This I don't mind. In fact, I'm quite pleased.

Describing Mansfield's lecture as "sensible talk" is another story...

From The New York Times:

A well-known advertising executive and worldwide creative director at WPP Group resigned his position yesterday amid an uproar over remarks he made at an industry event about female creative executives. The comments, by Neil French, 61, drew attention to the absence of women at the highest levels of the creative side of the ad industry.

Mr. French told an audience in Toronto on Oct. 6 that women "don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to," saying their roles as caregivers and childbearers prevented them from succeeding in top positions.

His comments infuriated some executives in the audience of more than 300 people, prompting one of them, Nancy Vonk, the co-chief creative officer of Ogilvy Toronto, a unit of WPP Group, to write a column for a Web site denouncing his comments.

Rightly so.

According Vonk, French said that women are “crap”:

"It felt like I got a shotgun blast in the face. I've had the experience of him being an excellent leader and very inspiring person. My head is still spinning because it was so outrageous. The upshot of what he said is that you give [women] a shot and they run off and have babies. It wasn't in good humor. It was extremely painful the way he spoke."

Not to judge a book but its cover (ok maybe a little), but take a look at this pic of French and tell me you're surprised.

A Michigan High School is hosting a Silver Ring Thing (the org whose federal funding was withdrawn recently) event where teens “get the chance” to pledge abstinence until marriage.

Not exactly news, I know; plenty of school host these things. But the rhetoric of choice in this particular article really bothered me.

(The title itself made me want to hurl, Teens get chance to pledge abstinence. Oh, thanks for the chance not to be a slut! Couldn’t of done it without that ring, obviously.)

A three-hour, high-tech media show, Silver Ring Thing features energetic music and sketch comedy designed to capture teenagers' attention and persuade them to sign on to the abstinence movement.

Yeah, I'm sure not "signing on" would go over real well.

14-year-old Areil, a freshman in high school--and daughter of one of the event’s organizers--says, “It was about giving kids a choice: 'Do you want to take the ring or do you not want to?'”

(Do you want to take the ring or do you want to be a big gross, whore?)

Can someone tell me how many teenagers brought to an abstinence event by their parents would refuse the ring? “Sorry mom, I know sex before marriage is a sin and everything but I’m just not comfortable signing on right now.”

You want to give kids a real choice? Make sure they're well-informed about sex and contraception and let them make their own decisions without putting them on the spot with scare tactics masked as "cool" events.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), women in New Orleans are more likely to be impoverished and heading single-parent families:

The poverty rate among female-headed families — which comprise 56 Women of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region are especially hard-hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as they are more likely than men to be in poverty, and to head single-parent families, according to a new study released today by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

The Women of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast: Multiple Disadvantages and Key Assets for Recovery, Part I. Poverty, Race, Gender and Class uses U.S. Census Bureau data to provide a detailed portrait of poverty among women and people of color in the city of New Orleans and the metropolitan areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas hardest hit by the hurricanes. The paper also presents data on poverty in the cities and metropolitan areas to which many hurricane victims have moved. The paper finds that poverty rates for women in this region are higher than for the nation as a whole, at 25.9% in the city of New Orleans, 17.4% in the broader New Orleans metropolitan area, 18.6% in the Biloxi-Gulfport-Pascagoula metropolitan area of Mississippi, and 16.2% in the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area of Texas, compared with 14.5% nationally.

“Recognizing the unique circumstances of women in the Gulf Coast region must be central to the rebuilding efforts. Ensuring that women are fully represented in the planning process will help to inform effective workforce development strategies and the design of services that support employment,” said IWPR Director of Research Dr. Barbara Gault. “Because of the high prevalence of single mother families, for example, access to convenient child care is crucial for successful redevelopment.”

For nearly a decade, the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life has played "a vital role in ensuring that Missouri women have an opportunity to participate in the public policy process at all levels of government." The institute holds workshops, training programs and networking events to try to increase the number of women leaders in the state.

But a few conservative state legislators want the University of Missouri Board of Curators to boot the institute from its on-campus location.

State Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, complained that the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life - located at the St. Louis campus - caters largely to women with a Democratic viewpoint. She also said it seems unfair that men are excluded or made to feel unwelcome at the institute.

Yeah, Jane? Well I think it’s unfair that women have historically been excluded or made to feel unwelcome in politics. And the complaint that the Institute is only for Democrats is just flat wrong. A third of the Republican women in the Missouri state legislature are Sue Shear alumnae, compared to 28 percent of women Democrats.

Later, an aide to state Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, argued that it was inappropriate for a public institution to run "campaign schools" that teach women how to run for political office.

I'd argue that a public campus is, in fact, the ideal place for an institute that aims to get more women involved in public life. That's why Sue Shear should stay at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The curators took no action on the issue, but are scheduled to discuss it again at their December 1-2 board meeting. If you want to voice your support for the institute, you can send letters here, and they'll make sure the curators receive them.

Thanks to Madeline (a Sue Shear alum) for the link.

Sigh...I loved you once, but alas will never shop at you again.

Target is the latest chain pharmacy to refuse women their prescriptions.

A 26-year-old Missouri woman was refused EC when she handed her prescription to a pharmacist at a Target store in Fenton, MO, on September 30. The woman was told by the pharmacist, “I won’t fill it. It’s my right not to fill it.” She was told that she could go to a local Walgreens instead. The woman said, “When the pharmacist told me she wouldn't [fill the prescription], I went from disbelief to shock to anger. I guess I'm still pretty angry. It seems unbelievable to me that a medical professional could/would deny access to a federally approved drug and impose their personal beliefs in a professional setting. I am also grateful that I did not need it filled at that time. I don't know how it would be if I had just been raped or if the condom broke and I was a feeling confusion and panic anyway -- and then was denied access and told to go across the street.”

Now I feel all guilty about buying sheets there yesterday.

AMERICAblog via Pandagon.

They also don’t consider oral action “real sex.”

In other news, a bear shit in the woods and the Pope came out as Catholic.

From The Associated Press:

A stay-at-home mom is on strike — giving up her daily chores until her family gives her more help around the house.

Regina Stevenson, 41, sat on a lawn chair Tuesday on the sidewalk outside her home in Frankfort, 20 miles southeast of Lafayette, with a sign saying "Mom on Strike."

Stevenson has four children, ranging in age from 7 to 19. The youngest three live at home with her and her husband, Dennis, along with their daughter-in-law and grandson.

..."(Stay-at-home moms) are not paid with money, and I think that you should show a little courtesy and respect for what we do," she said.

Sweet! By the way, this was so an 80s TV movie. (Remade in 2002 with Faith Ford.) I remember watching it and thinking, shit, I hope my mom doesn’t do that. Though I was only six, so I probably didn’t think in curses yet.

As Samhita already pointed out, Sauerbrey isn't exactly loved by women's organizations. But it's worth repeating, and taking some action over...

Twelve women's organizations sent a letter to President Bush today urging him to withdraw the nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey as Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Not only has Sauerbrey never worked with refugees, she also opposes reproductive rights and opposes working with the United Nations--which is kind of insane considering she’s now the US representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Take action now to oppose the nomination!

Write a letter to the editor; you can find contacts for your local papers through the Advocates for Youth action center or submit a letter to one of the top 100 U.S. papers.

Call or email the White House; click here for a sample script and text.

Check out the Top 10 Reasons to Oppose Sauerbrey for more information.

via Feminist Majority Foundation...

The Feminist Majority Foundation, along with nine other women's rights and health organizations has called for the withdrawal of President Bush's nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Sauerbrey is currently the US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women and has no experience handling refugee and crisis situations.

Sauerbrey opposed the Convention on the Right of the Child and the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. She has repeatedly asserted that "reproductive health services" is "code" for abortion, and headed the Bush administration’s effort to undermine the Beijing Platform for Action, an agreement between 189 countries to safeguard women's rights.

Tengo miedo.

I am all about critiquing and posting on lists of great women today. Anyway, Newseek just did this piece highlighting 8 prominent women and did bios on how they all got there.

Check it. This is an excerpt from one the interviews with Oprah.

Success is a magnifying glass on your personality. Who you are just becomes more intense. The real beauty of having material wealth is that you don't have to worry about paying the bills and you have more energy to be concerned about the things that matter. How do I accelerate my humanity? How do I use who I am on earth for a purpose that's bigger than myself? How do I align the energy of my soul with my personality and use my personality to serve my soul? My answer always comes back to self. There is no moving up and out into the world unless you are fully acquainted with who you are. You cannot move freely, speak freely, act freely, be free unless you are comfortable with yourself.

The article also interviews Vera Wang, Karen Hughes, Sheila Baxter, Vera Rubin, Anne Sweeney, Marin Alsop and Maria Otero. I mean, yeah I had never heard of most of these women either, so check it if you are interested.

What is problematic, other then the hardcore cheese factor (as Jessica so lovingly put it) in making a "best of women" list like this is that because these women made it doesn't mean every other woman can make it and it is just her own lack that is stopping her. These women overcame some serious serious obstacles to get where they are, and it is amazing that they did it. But there is no analysis that it is problematic that we live in a world where Newsweek has to do an 8 page bio on women that made it, because the accepted assumption is that we live in a man's world. That most of the time women don't/can't make it and we need to break down why and start from there.

But either way, I <3 Oprah!

I have recently become interested with the issue of male domination in the field of technology and quite frankly in the blogosphere. Three women however in the Bay Area are getting recognized for their contributions to technology and its application to the betterment of the world (well the technology world i guess).

via Business Wire...

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) will honor the recipients of its first Women of Vision Awards at a gala reception and dinner for more than 500 attendees to be held this evening at San Jose's Fairmont Hotel. Three prominent individuals -- Radia Perlman, Sun Microsystems; Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley; and Janie Tsao, Cisco Systems -- will be honored for their accomplishments and contributions as women in technology in the categories of Innovation, Social Impact and Leadership, respectively.

Yeah for them! But you know me with this Hall of Fame kind of crap. The fact that they have to honor women just highlights that the assumption in tech is that males dominate technology and doesn't critique that women work in all sectors of the technology industry, but are never recognized for their contributions. So adding women to the list is good on some level, but doesn't target the mechanism that creates the inequity in the first place. I doubt they call the regular awards the men of achievement, it is just assumed.

Love this. Beryl Tsang at Knitty talks about her problems finding a breast prosthesis after losing her right breast to cancer, and how she found an innovative way to solve her woes:

To cheer myself up, I rummaged through my stash looking for something luxurious to knit up. Then it hit me that I could knit myself a new titty; in fact, I had so much yarn I could knit myself a different titty for every day of the week, month, year!

I finished my first knitted titty an hour before the party and wore it with one of my favorite lacy underwires. When a friend, who had been following the whole titty saga, saw me she remarked, "You really did a great job! Your left breast looks almost as good as the right one -- a bit lumpy but very realistic."

"You know," I replied, "It was my right breast that was removed."

Via Boing Boing.

And I thought Harvard couldn't do any worse that Larry "Women Suck at Math" Summers! Oh, how wrong I was.

Government Professor Harvey Mansfield gave a lecture last night where he called for women to be more modest, talked about women's search for autonomy as a problem, and said that gay and transgendered people should remain on "society's margin."

In his discussion, ironically titled Feminism and The Autonomy of Women, Mansfield said "we need a new feminism." You know, one that keeps women in their place.

According to Mansfield, this change in traditional society has grown out of women's desire to achieve success in the workplace and at home. In his lecture, entitled, "Feminism and The Autonomy of Women", the professor identified this problem as one arising from "radical feminism" which sought to "lower women to the level of men" in terms of sexual behavior.

..."By the age of 30, you see men," he cautioned, "who are used to getting free samples" and will not enter into loyal, reliable relationships. Citing evolutionary biology research, Mansfield said that "men are interested in quantity, and women are interested in quality."

"Women play the men's game, which they are bound to lose. Without modesty, there is no romance�it isn�t so attractive or so erotic," said the professor.

Besides the disgusting double standard going on here, am I really supposed to care what this guy thinks is erotic?

...Mansfield argued that the questions and confusion facing feminists arise from their attempt at achieving "autonomy" and asserting that "men and women have no distinct nature."

I love that autonomy is in quotes by the way.

A big fan of digging his own grave, Mansfield went on to say that gay and transgendered people are on "society's margin" and should remain there and that "substitutes for the traditional family are dysfunctional...you wouldn't want children to grow up in them."

Amazing.

But I guess these kind of comments shouldn't surprise me considering the title of Mansfield's upcoming book: Manliness. (The cover is priceless by the way.) Mansfield's following works will be titled Macho, Macho Man and Worship the Cock.

Note: I have no idea how Harvard Crimson writer Samuel Jacobs felt about the lecture personally, but his identifying Simone De Beauvoir as "Simon De Beauvoir" certainly gives me pause.

Relief group Refugees International released a report that said putting more women managers, soldiers and police in UN peacekeeping missions would help to fight the growing sexual assault problem. Peacekeepers have recently been accused of assaulting citizens in several African missions. Nice, right?

Since most peacekeeping personnel are now men, a "boys will be boys" attitude prevails in these operations that encourages sexual exploitation and rewards those who remain silent about it, Refugees International said in a new report.

That attitude will continue to prevail until it is recognized that sexual exploitation and abuse "are primarily problems of abuse of power that merit disciplinary action and only secondarily problems of sexual behavior," said the report based on interviews in Guinea, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone over the past three years.

Magician David Copperfield plans to impregnate a girl on stage--without even touching her. Huh.

He said: "Naturally it will be without sex. Everyone will be happy about it, but I'm not telling you any more."

Yeah, please please don’t.

From this week's New Yorker profile of the hilarious Sarah Silverman:

Comedy is probably the last remaining branch of the arts whose suitability for women is still openly discussed. Several years ago, Jerry Lewis... told an audience at the Aspen Comedy Festival that he didn’t much care for female comedians and couldn’t think of one who was any good. Lewis’s views were criticized in public but upheld by some, in modified form, in private. "When you went home alone and did the math, he was just kind of right," Penn Jillette, the magician-comedian, says. "I mean, what passes for funny in women is, like, Lucille Ball, who was never funny."

What's so great about Silverman is that she's not just funny "for a woman." But her gender affords her the ability to go where male comedians can't-- and still make people laugh. Some examples:

In a catchy song she sings about porn actresses—"Do you ever take drugs / so that you can have sex without crying? / Yeah yeah"...

She took a pair of khaki pants, dabbed a tiny bit of red paint in the crotch, and wore them to a gig at a club called Largo... At the end of the set, she allowed herself to notice the stain, and said, wincing, "Did you guys— you, you must think that I have my period and you’re probably dying for me. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? No." She paused and said, as if to reassure, "I had anal sex for the first time tonight."

"I was raped by a doctor," she says. "Which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl."

It's such a hard line to walk. Rape itself is never funny. But using comedy to criticize society's reaction to rape can be hilarious. Most of the time, I think that's what Silverman's doing.

"People say I’m a nice girl saying terrible things. I tend to say the opposite of what I think. You hope that the absolute power of that transcends, and reaches the audience."

In other words, there's a big difference between a sexist joke and a joke about sexism. I'm sure she has her feminist detractors, but I, for one, can't wait for Silverman's forthcoming movie, Jesus is Magic.

A recent study in East China's Zhejiang province revealed that women have less leisure time than men.

Shocker.

We can probably chalk it up to my ignorance about global reproductive health issues, but this piece about IUDs really blew me away. I had no idea that the IUD (currently used by 160 million women) is the world's second most popular contraceptive method, after sterilization.

Apparently most American women, like me, are seriously afraid of IUDs. They account for less than 1% of contraceptive sales in the U.S.

But this article takes such a positive position on IUDs that parts of it read like an advertisement for the device: Hassle free! Economical! Long-lasting! Reduces the risk of ectopic pregnancy and endometrial cancer! There’s even an IUD collection at the contraception museum (next time I’m in Cleveland, I’m so there).

Perhaps because of technological advances, preferred contraception methods seem to be generational. I had a conversation with a 55-year-old coworker once, and she couldn’t believe that I didn’t know any women my age who use a diaphragm. Most are on the pill, I told her. She was shocked because the pill had been considered so unsafe when she was in her 20s.

So maybe a younger generation — too young to have heard the Dalkon Shield horror stories — will prefer the IUD? I wouldn’t be surprised.

How terrifying is that. I can't stop scratching my underwear.

P.S. Does anyone know where this ad came from? I can't seem to find the source.

Check out Jessica's post at BushvChoice on some new information on Miers and the continuous word games she plays when confronted with her position on Roe.

Additionally, ABC has just reported that the Senate has been given papers showing that Miers supported an amendment banning abortion except when the woman's life was in danger in a 1989 questionnaire by the Texans United for Life group.

While I'm not the biggest fan of the game industry as of late, a new online multiplayer game in the works caught my eye.

Next Generation is scheduled to release their newest project next year, Republik’s Spend the Night, where online players will meet, woo, and eventually act out their fantasies in their own private virtual room. Oh boy.

Due to the sexual (and sexist) graphics in so many games, we all saw this coming. However, Next Generation’s CEO Robert Coshland is claiming that “every marketing cent” of the game will be spent towards targeting women:

“There is little to nothing with erotic content, that has been developed specifically targeted to women either in the game industry or in the adult industry. For whatever reason, women tend to be written off as people who have no interest in sexual content. We don't believe that to be true. We have found, just in talking to people and focus tests, that women respond better to our concept than men. That's not so say that men aren't interested but women are truly intrigued by this idea because it's geared towards them and it involves them."

Should we be skeptical? Fuck yeah. Marketing is one thing; we need to see who the actual content appeals to. But maybe, just maybe, the industry is finally becoming more woman-friendly. My second question is, which industry am I talking about?

UPDATE: The Women's Game Conference next week is scheduled to have a talk on sex in video games. Hopefully they'll be able to shed more light on where women stand in all of this.

A group of sex workers from the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) had a news conference in the European Parliament yesterday in an effort to urge the European Union to end discrimination of the sex industry. Good shit.

The three-day long conference, titled “Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration” focused on current policies on morality and migration that have left sex workers unprotected. ICRSE’s goal:

“We want to put sex worker rights back on the European agenda and change the current focus on trafficking to migration, labour and human rights...to critically examine the effects of current policy and legal approaches to prostitution for people working in the sex industry and to challenge institutional motivations behind prostitution control.”

Check out the site to get the conference summary and other information.

Despite Clarence Thomas's best efforts, the Supreme Court won't stop a woman inmate in Missouri from obtaining an abortion.

In July, Missouri adopted a policy that blocks the use of tax dollars to transport prisoners to get abortions. So when a pregnant woman was admitted to the prison in Vandalia, the state refused to drive her to an abortion clinic.

The woman has been waiting for transportation to the clinic for the past 7 weeks. She's now about 17 weeks pregnant, and Missouri bars abortions after 22 weeks. There's also the matter of getting her an appointment-- Planned Parenthood in St. Louis only performs second-trimester abortions twice a week.

Maybe if Missouri had more than two abortion clinics, the transportation costs wouldn't be so high. I've been to the Vandalia facility, and it's in the middle of nowhere-- about 100 miles from St. Louis. The other women's prison is in Chillicothe, which is 90 miles northeast of Kansas City.

Missouri officials justified keeping women inmates from obtaining abortions by citing the state's laws that "discourage abortions and encourage childbirth." Makes perfect sense to me, seeing as how prisons are doing such a great job accomodating incarcerated mothers and their children.

Looks like Seventeen magazine’s recent Vagina 101 section was not as well-received by a popular grocery chain as it was here.

The October issue of Seventeen magazine has been pulled from the shelves at 2,500 Albertsons stores because of an article titled "Vagina 101" that includes graphic photos of female genitalia.

Actually it’s a drawing. But given the vagina-phobia going on here, I wonder if they just couldn’t tell the difference. UPDATE: My bad, there are pics on one of the pages. But seriously--who gives a shit?

Seventeen was not on the shelves of the Durango Albertsons on Friday, but it did have Men’s Health (“Sex: Her hottest hot spots”), Cosmopolitan (“101 sex tips”) and Jane (“Do miniskirts and major cleavage still pay dividends? We dress like whores to find out!”).

An Albertsons spokeswoman did not immediately return phone calls Friday requesting comment.

Perhaps for fear that a ban on actual vaginas was next.

American Girl and Girls, Inc. have come out swinging against the recent criticisms of their collaborative “I Can” campaign.

"We are profoundly disappointed that certain groups have chosen to misconstrue American Girl's purely altruistic efforts and turn them into a broader political statement on issues that we, as a corporation, have no position," the statement said.

...American Girl, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., said the "I Can" initiative supported three specific Girls Inc. programs: building girls' skills in science and math, developing leadership skills and encouraging athletic skills and team spirit.

"All of these aims are appropriate to our 7- to 12-year-old American Girl fans," the company said. "

...Joyce Roche, president of Girls Inc., said the New York-based organization had never before been targeted by a protest campaign.

"We were taken aback," she said in a telephone interview Friday. "Our programs are well respected. We're all about helping girls see possibilities and dream big dreams."

Girls Inc. takes positions on public policy issues if it believes women's rights and opportunities are at stake, Roche said. "Our philosophy is that women should have the right to make decisions about themselves," she said.

Well that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Check out the latest from political cartoonist Mikhaela Reid, Abstinence Education. Just great.

Of course she was.

A drama teacher at a Catholic high school in Sacramento was fired Thursday after church officials learned she had previously volunteered at an abortion clinic, school officials said Friday.

Marie Bain, 50, of Sacramento, who had taught at Loretto High School since August, was dismissed after a student's parent obtained pictures showing Bain escorting people into a Planned Parenthood clinic last spring.

Obtained pictures? Now tell me that doesn’t seem sketchy off the bat. When I used to escort at Planned Parenthood in Albany, the anti-choice nut-jobs used to take pics of us, and of the women walking in as a scare tactic. Fun stuff.

Reached at home Friday night, Bain acknowledged that she had been fired and that she had volunteered at Planned Parenthood before taking the Loretto job.

"There are many things I would love to say, but I don't want to jeopardize anything. I am pursuing many avenues," she said.

Bain's termination, announced Friday afternoon, was met with tears from students at the college preparatory school on El Camino Avenue. She was described as a passionate teacher with a dramatic personality who pushed her students to memorize their lines with precision.

"We lost a great teacher," said Cynthia Mitterholzer, the dance instructor who will take over for Bain.

...School officials at Loretto conduct extensive background searches before hiring teachers. The searches typically focus on employment and criminal history and do not often delve into volunteer work...

So it must be cool.

The students who started one of Princeton University's newest clubs remember the awkward moment when they realized they were in the minority: while watching a play called "Sex on a Saturday Night."

The play is put on for incoming freshmen to inform them about sexual health and safety. But to some students, there was just too much talk about sex.

"I remember sitting there and feeling really uncomfortable because every single character had either engaged in premarital sex or was talking about having engaged in premarital sex," said Christian Sahner, 20, a junior from Maplewood, New Jersey.

Eek! You mean a play about sex had sex in it?!

So about a year ago, the students formed a group promoting chastity. While similar groups exist at other universities, it is a first for the Ivy League. The groups first sprung up in the South, but the idea is catching on nationwide, said Jimmy Hester from "True Love Waits," a Nashville, Tennessee-based group that promotes abstinence.

...People who want to take part in the society's activities don't have to sign a pledge or take an oath. Some members may have had sex in the past, and leaders say the group is open to everyone, even those who may just be interested in exploring the idea of chastity intellectually.

I’m still trying to figure out what that means.

Organizers say students respond with a mixture of respect and curiosity. Others acknowledge their choice is a rare one. {Junior Caroline] Chopko said some have a "warped perception" of what it means to practice chastity.

"It's not like we don't dance or have fun," she said.

Well, there goes my Footloose theory. Ok, bad one-liners over.

I had to put this in humor, because if I don't I will cry myself to sleep tonight. My friend Alice, a new resident of Williamsburg, Brooklyn just told me about these "Kill Whitey" parties that have been going down in Brooklyn. This is infuriating...

"Kill whitey!" yells Tha Pumpsta into the microphone as he bounces to the beat. "What . . . gonna . . . do dance . . ." he raps to the beat. "Kill whitey!"

The kid by the bar busts out with a break-dancing move. Women drop their booties and the guys slide in close. Tha Pumpsta struts around in an all-white outfit from his headband to his high tops, shouting it again: " Kill whitey!"

Guess what, everyone at the party is white. It gets even better...

His proclaimed goal, in between spinning booty-bass, Miami-style frenetically danceable hip-hop records that are low on lyrical depth and high on raunchiness, is to "kill the whiteness inside."

What that means, precisely, is debatable, but it has something to do with young white hipsters believing they can shed white privilege by parodying the black hip-hop life. In this way, they hope to escape their uptight conditioning and get in touch with the looser soul within them.

Because the opposite of whiteness is black hip hop. Because shaking your ass to culturally appropriated music makes you understand how your life and priviledge are directly connected to the oppression of people of color in your own little gentrified hood.

It gets even better, I didn't think it could.

"I'm throwing this party, and it's obvious that I'm white and I'm kind of appropriating this culture but in an ironic way," said Tha Pumpsta, whose name is Jeremy Parker. The 25-year-old takes his Pumpsta moniker from his high-top sneakers. "Kinda poking fun at myself and my origins and white people in general," he said.

"I'm trying to kill the whiteness inside," Parker added, although his blue eyes, milk-white skin and blond hair might suggest he has some work ahead of him.

A melanin-lacking hip-hop party might be a fact of demographics in a few corners of the United States. But in New York, where hip-hop was born in black and Latino neighborhoods, the all-white parody of black culture can strike a jarring note.

Yes because I totally see what is ironic about un-aware white hipsters colonizing (their perception of) black culture, distributing it and distorting it to make themselves feel better about their own priviledge. I think there are more effective ways to doing this. The only thing ironic about this is how kids with so much priviledge could end up so stupid.

On a last note, the article interviews a woman who attends these parties and she tried to go to a "real" (whatever the fuck that means) hip-hop party and found the men to be too hardcore. Hmmm. I don't even know where to start, fear of the black man much?

Somehow "Kill Whitey" has become a safe space for white people to act out black racist stereotypes, while sexualizing women, appropriating culture that they don't understand and feel like they are doing something POSITIVE through this process.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. When did hipster culture become totally void of the political?

My friend Dave and I were just talking about this and he suggested what would the opposite of this look like. What if a bunch of people of color got together and said let's kill the color inside? What would that look like?

As we have discussed over and over here at feministing, we are very skeptical of this new police/military style democracy emerging in Iraq and a peace process that has led to more deaths recently then before and this constitution that will supposedly support women's rights.

via Washington Post...

The draft going before voters Saturday specifies equality regardless of a person's sex and aspires to reserve 25 percent of the seats in the National Assembly for women.

But it also gives each Iraqi household the option of using religious law to decide matters of inheritance, divorce, alimony and other family issues. Rights advocates have said they fear women will be coerced by male relatives into accepting the least favorable interpretations of religious law -- forbidding divorce without a husband's permission, for example, or cutting a daughter's inheritance compared with a son's.

The constitution also sets aside seats for Muslim clerics on the Supreme Court, which will weigh the constitutionality of all laws. In a country where an Iranian-influenced Shiite religious party holds the balance of power, that alarms proponents of women's rights.

The article also discusses my favorite topic,the connection between military intervention and the growth of fundamentalism.

Shiite marshals roam the southern city of Basra, chastising women for showing a bare arm or calf and beating them for picnicking with male friends. Female lawmakers from the governing Shiite religious parties talk with relish of establishing a husband's right to beat wives -- albeit subject to regulation. Female officials speak with approval of a woman in the southern city of Najaf who was denied a judgeship because of her sex.

Milla says she has seen more and more colleagues retreat under head scarves, saying they fear becoming targets of the fundamentalism, linked to anti-American sentiment, that has been growing since the war.

They don't really elaborate on this growth of fundamentalism on behalf of women. But I know we have written about this before.

What do you think?

In the case of Kashmir, women seem to make up the majority of the death toll. One of the reasons they are saying is that local traditions don't allow women outside of the house uncovered. When the earthquake hit, many of these women did not have a chance to get it together and run outside of the shaking buildings, so they ended up trapped inside.

For a majority of Pakistani women, life is raising children and looking after the home -- where they are almost idolised by the males of the family and treated as queens of their domains.

But this life spent almost in purdah -- an Urdu word meaning "behind the veil" -- condemned thousands of Pakistani women to death when Saturday's deadly South Asian earthquake struck.

Officials say the majority of the estimated 40,000 victims of the 7.6 magnitude quake were women and children.

Doctors say the same of the injured they are treating across the quake's "death zone", stretching from the rugged North West Frontier Province to the lush mountains and valleys of Pakistani- and Indian-controlled Kashmir.

via Reuters...

This review of Liz Phair’s new album got me all nostalgic for Exile in Guyville.

I was an Exile devotee long before I identified as a feminist. (Even though in those years Phair wasn’t shy about her feminism.) I certainly didn’t think of Exile as a feminist statement. It was just good music. But the album was sort of my musical bridge from Pavement to riot grrrl—which was, I think, my bridge to feminism. So Exile has a special place in my music collection, even though my Phair fandom lasted only as long as she was signed to Matador Records.

I don’t have a problem with the trappings of her new(ish) grab for stardom. I wasn’t disappointed to see her writhing onstage in a leather miniskirt, or posing naked on an album cover. (Ah, those "fuck-me feminists.")

The review points out the real problem: Phair stopped writing good songs. Compare these Exile lyrics to some of those from her newer albums:

From Exile: I bet you fall in bed too easily with the beautiful girls who are shyly brave and you sell yourself as a man to save but all the money in the world is not enough.

From the newer albums: Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you / Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you and You can count on my love / With me you'll feel protected/ And you'll never be rejected.

Barf. Then she took the poorly written songs, and had them over-produced. The reviewer claims the new album is a bit better than Phair's recent efforts, but I won't be buying it. I will, however, be dusting off my copy of Exile in Guyville.

If you’re in New York City this weekend, make sure to visit the infamous Ladyfest*East, which will take place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this year.

Ladyfest stemmed out of the Riot Grrrl movement, which originally focused on women in music, “setting themselves apart from the prevalence of bustier-wearing, hip-undulating pop tarts.” Ladyfest, on the other hand, organizes an annual weekend-long festival where women can exhibit a range of different work, which includes music, film, visual arts, performing arts and literature.

The activities vary from live music and film screenings to craft fairs and burlesque shows. I don’t know about you, but these ladies sound like some fun-ass feminists to me.

Also, check out Cristy C. Road, who’s responsible for the awesome drawing above.

This shit is weird.

BT futurology has thought up of a new master plan to revolutionize technology. How would they do that, do you ask? Insert a computer chip of music into breast implants. Whaa?

Apparently, one breast will be able to hold an MP3 player and the other the music collection. (Ladies, time to throw away your CD racks!) A signal would be relayed to headphones, while they could control the music with a panel on their wrist.

Why would they think of this ingenious invention? A BT Laboratories’ analyst Ian Pearson answers, "It is now very hard for me to thing of breast implants as just decorative. If a woman has something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful." Ha!

While I didn’t think this shit could get any worse, they threw in one last random fact:

“The sensors around the body linked through the electrical impulses in the chips may also be able to warn wearers about heart murmurs, blood pressure increases, diabetes and breast cancer.”

Nice prioritizing. Sigh.

Thanks to Kyle for the link.

In an interview with Barbara Walters today, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah stated that he intended to expand the rights of women in the nation by eventually allowing women to drive. I’d love to believe it.

Saudi women are currently not allowed to drive, go out in public without a male relative or go to college; in other words, they can’t do shit. Yet the king assures ABC that that women will drive one day, and that acquiring this fundamental right to go places “will require patience. In time, I believe it will be possible."

So he’s saying that he thinks that eventually women will maybe have the freedom to drive, perhaps.

I’m sold!

A UK study revealed on Wednesday that women know more about soccer than men:

“Research found that 59 percent of women could correctly identify the offside law -- one of the game's hardest to comprehend -- as opposed to just 55 percent of men.

Also 65 percent of women correctly used the title assistant referee, while 40 percent of men wrongly referred to the official as a ‘linesman’.”

In your face, boys!

P.S. I know nothing about soccer.

Check out this interview in the Village Voice with Susan Estrich about her new book that says future President Hillary Clinton will save us all.

The Case For Hillary Clinton hits bookstores next week, and argues that Hillary’s election into the White House will rescue the Democratic Party from their shit storm, and better the lives of all women.

If y’all don’t know her, Estrich is famed as a Fox News political commentator and the first woman to head a presidential campaign when she worked for Michael Dukakis in 1988. Here’s a little snippet of the interview:

Is a Hillary presidential race really good for all women? Once President Hillary is elected, gender inequities will change. There is a great quote from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in which she says she wants a woman on the court, but not any woman. She wants a woman who'd advance women's rights. The same could be said for a woman president. I used to sit in the West Wing and watch groups of men go in and out, seven at a time. With a President Hillary, they'd have to get themselves a dame.

But feminism has become such a bad word in politics. Feminism has been defined in a negative way. But I was watching Desperate Housewives the other day and there was a scene involving a poor, working mother, a housekeeper who wanted to be there for her child's first day of school, and, of course, she couldn't be because of her mean boss. Well, feminism was supposed to be about making changes in the workplace so women could be there. President Hillary, I'm sure, would create more family friendly policies.

Make sure to check out the whole interview. They even compare Clinton to Geena Davis.

A Maryland judge dismissed Yvette Cade's request for a protective order. Three weeks later, Cade's estranged husband set her on fire.

When Cade asked that the restraining order be enforced, the judge suggested marriage counseling:

"Your honor, he's violating the peace order. He's contacting my family. He's still contacting me. He's intimidating my daughter, and he's vandalizing other people's property," she told the judge.

She said that her husband was trying to force her to go to marriage counseling and that she did not want to go.

"Well, it might not be a bad idea if you want to save the marriage," the judge told her.

Cade suffered third-degree burns over most of her body and her face.

This is what happens when officials don't take protective orders seriously. And this is why we need the judicial training grants and workplace safety provisions in the Violence Against Women Act.

Surprise! FDA officials don't want the morning-after pill sold over-the-counter because they're worried it will turn our nation's teen girls into sluts.

The Government Accountability Office has been looking into the FDA's approval process for expanding access to Plan B, and a draft of the report was just released to congressional staffers.

Washington Post reports:

When Steven Galson, then-acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, announced the rejection, he said the decision was his own, had been recently made and was based on scientific concerns. The GAO report, however, indicates the decision was solidified months earlier and that other top officials were involved in the decision. ...

The draft GAO report indicates that Galson voiced concerns in FDA meetings about how easier availability of Plan B would effect sexual behavior by girls.

The GAO confirms that the FDA is concerned about our "morals," not our safety. Because, oddly enough, the agency didn't seem to have a problem with other drugs that were approved overwhelmingly on scientific grounds.

NPR also reported yesterday that the FDA's failure to take action on Plan B may have affected the agency's credibility. (Shocking, I know.)

Expect the full report to be made public by the end of the month. I can't wait.

UPDATE: Send the FDA your comments.

Check out this article by Joanna Grossman, Does Gender Matter? A Feminist Look at the Nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

In it, Grossman argues that although Miers might not be a women's rights advocate per se, her "confirmation would still be a good thing for women" and be "symbolic of one aspect of equality."

What do you think about this? As women, and feminists, should we be promoting any female candidate, simply because it's good to have a woman in the post? Should we hold out for someone who supports "our agenda"? Do we even have a unified agenda?

Maybe these kind of questions can be answered fairly easily when talking about a Supreme Court nominee. But what if it were for President, or another important governmental position never held by a woman? Would we, and should we, be willing to support a woman candidate simply because she's a woman?

UPDATE: Tina Brown has a great argument that we've come a long way because we aren't supporting Miers based on her gender.

Bush revealed yesterday that religion was one of the main reasons he felt Miers was a good choice. Thank you for telling us what we had already suspected.

via LA Times...

"People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush said when reporters asked about those assurances. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion. Part of it has to do with the fact that she was a pioneer woman and a trailblazer in the law in Texas."

Bush previously has stressed his knowledge of her character, but this was the first time he publicly referred to her faith when asked about picking her.

Check out what our favorite socialist-feminist (don't know if she is still, but was back in the 70's and 80's) of the past has to say about contemporary corporate culture in her new book, Bait and Switch.

via Nerve...

In networking, as in prostitution, there is no time for fascination," writes Barbara Ehrenreich in Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, her fantastically funny and important new book about the corporate world. An immersion journalist, Ehrenreich went undercover to land a job in public relations; in the process, she subjected herself to endless job coaching, resume shaping and image consultations. Ultimately, she never found actual employment, but she did take away a wealth of information about how American business culture has torn the social contract, and how playing it safe is no longer safe at all.

If anyone has read this or will read it and let us know how it is, that would rock. There is a short interview with her on Nerve, so check it if you are interested.

This is an interesting piece on prisons in the US(they are just great aren't they) not being able to meet the needs of their growing female inmate population.

via Seattle Pi...

Women are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. prison population, a trend fueled by their growing involvement in drug crimes and by longer sentences in general. But once behind bars, their needs are often overlooked because of tight budgets and the attention given to sex offenders and death-row inmates, advocates say.

Those are some pretty intense stats. Check this to see what some folks are doing in terms of advocating for women inmate's rights.

Why do we think there has been a growth in female inmates? And what race, class and gender is being the most represented in this growing population?

Since I can't sleep, I am just going to keep posting on all these stomach turning articles I am coming across. The LA Archdiocese released their files on sexual abuse by folks in the clergy spanning over a decade of hidden abuse.

via Washington Post...

The summaries read like matter-of-fact résumés, numbing lists of parishes served and promotions received.

The archdiocese published the summaries on its Web site, http://www.la-archdiocese.org/ , at midnight Tuesday. They were compiled in connection with settlement negotiations over more than 560 sex abuse lawsuits, which could cost the archdiocese more than $500 million, according to lawyers on both sides.

At least they are starting to uncover these atrocities. It makes me sick to think how many kids have been victimized and their stories made invisible.

Last night I couldn't sleep either and I happened to catch a re-airing of Oprah (gasp, yes i do sometimes watch Oprah) and she was doing an episode on child molesters and rapists. She said a lot of amazing things about being victimized herself when she was nine and that it is her job that with her resources to find and try other offenders that run free. She also said that state by state by state, she would work to change the laws to become more stringent in these particular incidents.

While law after law is being proposed to restrict choice, victims of abuse are practically being overlooked by law making bodies, state and national.

Sigh. Just love her.

Deanna at Alternet has a recent speech by the amazing Doris "Granny D" Haddock on the politics of nonviolence.

Read it now.

Believe in yourself and each other.

Believe in your strength.

Apparently these are the very dangerous messages girls are getting from American Girl’s recent collaboration with Girls, Inc. At least, that’s what the folks at the American Family Association say.

American Girl, a super-popular doll company, joined forces with girls’ rights organization Girls, Inc. to launch an “I Can” campaign. American Girl is selling these cute bracelets (70 cents from each will go to programs at Girls, Inc.) and asking girls to take the “I Can” Promise:

I can be myself, follow my dreams, and always do my best. I can reach for the stars, lend a hand to others, and be a good friend. I can make a difference! I promise to try.

The AFA has started a petition to stop the campaign because Girls, Inc. is “a pro-abortion, pro-lesbian advocacy group.” Huh?

Here’s the “proof” that the AFA offers to prove that the org is just a bunch of baby-killing lesbians:

Girls Incorporated encourages all girls to develop positive sexual identities and to function comfortably as responsible sexual beings...Girls have a right to positive, supportive environments and linkages to community resources for dealing with issues of sexual orientation.

...We recognize the right of all women to choose whether, when, and under what circumstances to bear children. Reproductive freedom and responsibility are essential to other rights and opportunities, including pursuit of education, employment, financial security and a stable and fulfilling family life.

The horror!

Oh, and by the way--the money from the bracelets go to the following programs (hint: they’re not abortion field trips):

Girls Inc. Operation SMART®, which builds skills in science, math and technology;

Girls Inc. Discovery Leadership®, which develops leadership skills and community awareness; and

Girls Inc. Sporting Chance®, which encourages athletic skills, cooperative and competitive spirit, and an interest in sports participation.

So pretty please take action to counteract whatever damage the AFA may do--email Mattel Chairman Bob Eckery and American Girl President Ellen Brothers to thank them and let them know you support their efforts to empower girls.

The Feminist Majority Foundation has an action alert on Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the male editor of a women’s rights magazine who was arrested ten days ago. Islamic religious scholars are demanding a jail sentence of up to 15 years for blasphemy.

Feminist Majority is asking that people send an email to Condoleezza Rice and Under Secretary for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky to seek the release of Nasab.

Take action now!

Well, practically.

Vanessa told you about Elexa last month--a brand of products put out by Trojan marketed to women. She also mentioned that one of Elexa’s products, a vibrating latex ring, won’t be available in Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, Alabama or Colorado. Sigh.

The Associated Press reports that perhaps these states are making a big deal out of nothing:

That's because Elexa's most intimate product — the vibrating latex ring sex toy — is outlawed due to antierotic massager laws that Trojan didn't want to touch. Residents of the aforementioned states can't even order the ring online, although they can lawfully purchase all other Elexa products...

It's a big fuss over a small object. The ring, a latex loop about 2 inches in diameter, has the smushy consistency of a gummy bear or a silicone fishing lure. It's attached to a bullet-size plastic capsule that provides vibration, activated by pressing a tiny button. The stimulation lasts about 20 minutes before it sputters out. And users can't replace the battery.

...Hallie Liberman, who used to sell sex toys Tupperware-style as a Passion Parties hostess in Texas, calls the ring a "good, entry-level gateway sex toy." "What's great about these companies is they're mainstreaming it," says Liberman. "Instead of giving it some extreme vulgar name, they're making it more accessible."

(By the way, did anyone else cringe when the article compared the ring’s consistency to a gummy bear?)

The United Nations said yesterday that poverty can’t be adequately addressed until it takes on social, economic and physical discrimination against women.

"Gender apartheid" could scuttle the global body's goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015, the U.N. Population Fund's annual State of World Population report said. "We cannot make poverty history until we stop violence against women and girls," the fund's executive director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, said at the report's launch in London. "We cannot make poverty history until women enjoy their full social, cultural, economic and political rights."

The report said gender equality and better reproductive health could save the lives of 2 million women and 30 million children over the next decade - and help lift millions around the world out of poverty.

In 2000, the U.N. agreed to eight Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education and stemming the AIDS pandemic, all by 2015.

The report said one of the targets - promoting gender equality and empowering women - is "critical to the success of the other seven."

Seriously!

First lady Laura Bush joined her husband in defending his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday and said it was possible some critics were being sexist in their opposition to Harriet Miers.

"That's possible, I think that's possible," Mrs. Bush said when asked on NBC's "Today Show" whether criticism that Miers lacked intellectual heft were sexist in nature.

Quite the radical feminist admission from our fair First Lady. Next thing you know she'll be calling for equal pay for equal work, or something ridiculous like that.

USA Today had an interesting piece yesterday on how Americans feel about a woman being president--on television and in the real world.

The good news:

Commander in Chief is the most-watched new show this season.

The bad news:

People like this actually exist...

"I don't believe a woman should be in charge," says Brandy Ruliffson, 24, a stay-at-home mother of three in Allen, Texas, who was among those called in the USA TODAY survey. "Men should be in charge of that stuff."

Thankfully, Brandy is in the minority. The White House Project reports that nearly eighty percent of Americans are ready for a woman president.

Today is National Coming Out Day!

There are workshops, rallies and other events going on all across the country to celebrate; find out more at the Human Rights Campaign.

Also make sure to check out the Equality for All campaign, a coalition of LGBT rights organizations dedicated to fighting back against anti-gay campaigns seeking to ban marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Happy coming out!

After reading this, my day is pretty much done. I saw a segment on HBO’s Real Sex about Real Dolls a while back, so I was somewhat prepared for the weird factor. But Salon author Meghan Laslocky writes about the “iDollator” community in such depth and detail, I ended up wishing I never learned to read. It’s that disturbing.

Just one of many sections that had me choking on my coffee:

According to Davecat and many other Real Doll owners, sex with a Real Doll is quite good. "For the most part, it's just like sex with an organic woman...who doesn't say anything and is brimful of Quaaludes...”

... “I like having her in bed beside me, holding her, cuddling her,” he tells me. “I like to sleep with my doll. I'll be blunt: She's a girlfriend.”

When referring to their coital habits, Davecat uses terms like “make love” or “have sex...”

Yesterday Sen. Barbara Boxer and California Treasurer Phil Angelides came out against Proposition 73, an amendment to the state Constitution that would require parental notification for teens seeking to obtain an abortion.

The two Democratic politicians said that Proposition 73, which is on the ballot for the Nov. 8 special election, could eventually erode the reproductive rights women won under Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

"This proposition is designed to make it difficult for young women to get the medical attention they need at a very difficult time," Angelides said during a news conference at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate.

Thanks to Boxer and Angelides for speaking up!

From The Guardian:

Germany was on the brink of a new and volatile political era last night, after a deal was agreed that will see the conservative leader Angela Merkel become the country's first ever woman chancellor.

Three weeks of wrangling over last month's indecisive election ended yesterday when the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, announced he was resigning. Mrs Merkel will now become chancellor and lead a "grand coalition" between her Christian Democrat party and its Bavarian ally the Christian Social Union, and Mr Schröder's Social Democrats.

Yay for Newsweek for their new/new-ish column on women's health - this recent column tackles low libidos.

I think the column is great to point out that men's sexuality enhancement drugs, like Viagra, coast through the drug approval process with nary a problem. But I wanted the columnists to launch forward a little more progressively with their comment that sometimes vibrators do the trick. Something along the lines of, "But maybe we don't need to call in the antidepressants or legalize testosterone patches to 'correct' the 'libido.' Maybe the sex could just be better."

I think sex is a very complicated thing and I think what whets our sexual appetites is as distinctive as our fingerprints. I still think
our society looks through a male-tinted lens: if it's not working for women, we have to modify the women to fix it.

As someone who has studied gender studies in an academic setting, I am genuinely interested in hearing peer reviewed, supported theories as to why (or if) women may have lower libidos than men. Maybe it actually is all about testosterone or maybe its something biological about women just getting horny around the same window of time they can get pregnant to further the species.

But my experience as a woman tells me that a woman can have a 'low libido' with one man and a 'high libido' with a different man, or herself, or a woman. Strictly speaking of heterosexual relationships, which is my area of expertise, I think that couples should whip out the lube - though not sure about the Crisco (as suggested in the column), seems like something a lady should should keep out of her vagina to me - before patching up to testosterone as a Band-aid.

Contributed by Jess Wakeman

AlertNet has a massive list of organizations helping with the relief effort in South Asia.

Check it out and give what you can.

The Village Voice has an interview with Jennifer Shahad, “the strongest American-born female chess player of all time.” And she’s 24 years old. Lordy.

Even if you’re not a chess-buff (I’m certainly not), the kick-ass title of Shahad’s new book should be enough to get to get you interested, Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport. Love it.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, abstinence-only education holds a special place in my heart. I love to hate it; it pisses me off like no other. But sometimes you need a good laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, and this SF Weekly article is the just the thing to help you do it.

Author Harmon Leon infiltrated a three-day abstinence conference (brave guy) to see what kind of hijinks would ensue. (He even donned a disguise that included a fanny pack and sweater vest. Priceless.)

Some gems from his experience include descriptions of the crowd...

Roughly 100 folks have now gathered in a large conference room for the evening's events. The crowd is composed entirely of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Jews ... just kidding. It's not only very white here, it's whiiiiiiiiiiiiite. Most of the people are poodle-haired old ladies in flower-print shirts; they all seem to have a small-town glow. The woman in front of me is quilting. A cell phone with gospel music for the ring tone goes off.

...tips for escaping the evils of porn...

"Let me tell you: MTV started out bad and is only getting worse."

Then the bubbly woman prescribes an easy solution: "Protect your eyes, protect the music you listen to!"

An effective method of eye protection, she notes, is a practice known as "Look and Drop." When a guy sees a woman and feels lust, he should train himself to immediately bounce his eyes away -- Look and Drop!

"The mind works fast. This trains him to look away. He doesn't allow the visual image to take hold," she explains.

...and dinner theater!

"This skit is called 'The Pieces of My Heart' skit," the lanky guy says.

A female volunteer is brought up from the audience. Chunky blond gal narrates as tall, lanky guy holds a paper heart. She says that he and his girlfriend decide to have SEX. Complications. "She breaks up with him and breaks a piece of his heart."

Tall, lanky guy tears off part of his heart and gives it to chunky blond gal. This same interaction occurs again. More sex. More paper-heart-tearing.

"Now he has a really dinky heart," explains the chubby gal. Tall, lanky guy presents the paper-heart remnant to the audience volunteer, who portrays the future wife of the now-small-hearted man.

"So how does that make her feel?" asks chunky gal.

"Not good," admits the audience volunteer.

She directs her attention to the lanky guy. "How does he feel?"

"Like poop!" he blurts.

Add in a ‘Pet your dog, not your date’ button and the author insisting he’s with an organization Mimes for Abstinence, and my day is pretty much made.

Eight women have won their discrimination case against Australian airline Virgin Blue, who refused to hire the women because they were “too old.” Lovely.

The women, aged between 36 and 56, claimed they did not make it through the airline's initial selection process because they did not fit the company's youthful image.

Virgin Blue had maintained that the women were not selected because they did not display the behavioural competencies the airline was looking for in its cabin staff.

But the tribunal found that the recruitment process prevented the women from being considered fairly for employment and that older applicants were treated less favourably than younger ones.

In response to Hillary's inauguration into the Women's Hall of Fame she said,

"We have made so many advances in the last 40 years that are really unprecedented in the history of the world," said Clinton, one of 10 women inducted Saturday in the National Women's Hall of Fame.

"I don't think there has ever been a better time to be a woman than in the United States of America in the 21st century," she said in an interview. "We have a broad scope of choices ... that really are defined by who we are and what we want as individuals and not constricted by the gender we were born into."

Wow! I don't think so. Yes we have made many advances (I hate linear language like that, like we are "better" than the women before us!) or at least our circumstances have changed as have our issues, in the last forty years, but I feel like we have had many setbacks as well (like some serious feminist backlash). I also think that if this is the best time to be a woman, then sheeet, we don't need to be writing this blog anymore.

Choice is a race and class based assumption. The choices I have in picking a career or whatever are intimately tied to my priviledge, my education and my race. Poor women, queer women and women of color, don't have those same choices, in fact all types of women have all types of different choices and many are in unfair social/cultural circumstances. Let's not get carried away here Hillary.

Other people inducted into the hall of fame include...

Clinton, 57, the only first lady elected to the Senate, was enshrined along with Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Rita Rossi Colwell, who became the first female director of the National Science Foundation in 1998, and Betty Bumpers, a crusader for childhood immunizations who was Clinton's predecessor as Arkansas' first lady.

Oh I see, only women that played the rules of the boys world were put in. Kudos to these woman, but where is like women that super duper rule (my list=bell hooks, Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldua, women that work in the border towns etc). I hate this kind of stuff, it is like these historical memorializations that try and cover up bloody pasts, and make stories that are unfair, subjective and oppressive, not OUR history, their history. Okay I didn't mean to go so far off tangent there, but I think you catch my drift.

Who would YOU put in the hall of fame?

The Daily at the University of Washington, Seattle checks in with the newly appointed chair of women’s studies, David Allen.

Allen became the nation's only male chair of a doctorate-level women studies department Sept. 1 when former women studies chair Judith Howard retired.

"I am almost willing to bet there would be universal preference for a woman of color in this position," Allen said at a session of Women Studies 322. "A man of color would have been more preferable. I'm guessing I'm kind of third tier."

Check out this new campaign, Stand Up, which addresses discrimination and violence against women inspired by the new flick, North Country.

The campaign was launched today, and seeks to spread awareness and mobilize before North Country’s opening, which is in a couple of weeks. There's also a campaign blog, which includes our Jessica, Hugo Schwyzer and other nifty peeps.

Make sure to take a look at Participate as well, which is the site that's hosting the campaign. Interesting stuff.

Reuters had a good article from last week on how women have continuously been left out of the Nobel Prize loop; in other words, they don’t get any.

Since 1901, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science has given away 320 awards to renowned chemists and physicists, with only five of them to women. Members of one family - the Curies - won three of those five.

Did I mention the award hasn’t even been given to a woman since 1964? Additionally, it was announced yesterday that three men are to be given the award this year.

Gunnar Oquist, the secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy, doesn’t seem to be too concerned:

"This is very remarkable in the times we live in and with the importance we give to gender equality here...And it simply takes time. The work we reward today usually dates back 20 or so years. Probably things will look different in 25 years."

I mean, geez, it’s only been a century!

Here are some notes at SaveTheCourt.Org on an RNC conference call last night on Harriet Miers. The speakers included:

Tim Goeglein (White House Office of Public Liaison)
Ken Mehlman (RNC Chair)
Chuck Colson (Syndicated columnist)
James Dobson (Focus on the Family)
Sara Taylor (White House Political Director)
Jay Sekulow (Pat Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice)
Leonard Leo (on leave from Federalist Society)
Dr. Richard Land (president of Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission)

Click here for the actual recording of the call, thanks to Crooks and Liars.

A recent study has found that the question of whether you were breast-fed or not may be involved in your chances of developing breast cancer. Hmm.

While previous studies have shown that breast-feeding your babe may decrease your chances of developing breast cancer, this study conducted by British researchers found that women who were breast-fed during infancy have a reduced risk of attaining premenopausal breast cancer.

Additionally, as it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, check out this site launched by Breast Cancer Action called Think Before You Pink. The project raises awareness of how many companies that sell pink ribbons are merely boosting profits for their own products, and giving barely any money to research or programs.

How infuriating is that. Click here to take action.

Only a few days after Indianapolis Senator Pat Miller announced her intention to propose a bill making marriage a requirement for motherhood, she has "changed her mind", and has withdrawn it from consideration.

She stated that she now acknowledges that the issue is "more complex that she thought."

Ya think?

While the Afghanistan elections had a huge women voter turn out last month, it has been reported that a women’s rights activist, Malalai Joya, has won a seat in parliament.

The 27-year old activist placed second in the five-seated parliament in western Farah province. While the counting is over, it’s said that election officials are still auditing the results and “sorting out allegations of fraud.”

Sounds shady to me. The official results will be announced at the end of the month.

Good luck, Malalai.

Some good news on the medical front:

An experimental Merck & Co. vaccine completely prevented early-stage cervical cancer and precancerous cervical lesions caused by the two most common forms of a virus linked to such cancers, Merck said on Thursday.

"This trial confirms that a vaccine can give young women a high level of protection from developing precancerous lesions and early cervical cancers," Laura Koutsky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington who led the study, told Reuters.

The favorable findings were seen in a late-stage trial sponsored by the U.S. drugmaker, which included more than 12,000 women from 13 countries, aged 16 to 26, who were not infected with either of the virus types when the trial began.

The two forms of human papillomavirus, types 16 and 18, are responsible for an estimated 70 percent of cervical cancer cases, and are the targets of Merck's Gardasil vaccine. Such cancers kill about 300,000 women worldwide each year, including almost 4,000 in the United States, Merck said.

Though who knows if the vaccine will ever actually get to women. The Christian right is doing their best to block the vaccine. Cause it will make you slutty. No, seriously.

You remember back in May, Katha Pollitt had a great piece on this very subject, Virginity or Death! Check out why some folks would rather see you get cancer than the truth:

Christian conservatives have a special reason to be less than thrilled about the HPV vaccine. Although not as famous as chlamydia or herpes, HPV has the distinction of not being preventable by condoms. It's Exhibit A in those gory high school slide shows that try to scare kids away from sex, and it is also useful for undermining the case for rubbers generally--why bother when you could get HPV anyway? In 2000, Congressman (now Senator) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who used to give gruesome lectures on HPV for young Congressional aides, even used HPV to propose warning labels on condoms. With HPV potentially eliminated, the antisex brigade will lose a card it has regarded as a trump unless it can persuade parents that vaccinating their daughters will turn them into tramps, and that sex today is worse than cancer tomorrow.

Lovely.

Women's groups today reacted angrily to a judgment by Delhi High Court that marriage of a girl of 15 was legally valid if it was at her own free will, saying it defeated efforts to stop child marriage and asked the Centre to appeal against the decision.

Um, yeah that sounds pretty much against banning child marriage.

"Child marriage is a big problem in our country. You should see the plight of child widows. In such a scenario, the court order is a matter of serious concern," Vyas said.

The New York Times featured an article today, "On 'Alias,' the Star Is Now Spying for Two," about Jennifer Garner's pregnant season 5 premiere. Who cares, you ask? According to the Times, and People, and USA Today, etc., this is TV history.

It boggles my mind that in 2005 we're excited when an actress can appear pregnant on TV. But truth be told, it's not done very often, and certainly not when the actress plays a CIA agent. It's pretty rad. As the Times wrote:

'Alias' has built an entire season around the blessed event....On the most basic level, Sydney is simply another woman 'working through her pregnancy,'....[But w]hat viewers may find most novel and startling about the story is its depiction of pregnancy as a highly seductive state - 'active and glam and sexy.'

Obviously the show makes a point of mentioning that neither Garner, nor her character, will be put in harm's way. And they're also quick to point out that "as she becomes something of a swollen-bellied superheroine, Sydney will [also] mist up over sonogram images and choose cute accessories for her nursery."

Goes to show that we can't expect the world to change overnight. Still gots to be cutsey! But this is still a nice development.

I love love love these political cartoons from Mikhaela Reid; go check them out immediately. Above is a cropped section (got to leave you wanting more!) of Reid’s latest, Your Yucky Body: A Repair Manual. Hysterical.

I’m also slightly obsessed with Gay Marriage: The Sordid Aftermath. Find out more about Reid here.

I just wanted to put this one out there.

Reauthorization of the bill is in reality a band-aid on a major wound. Tribal programs addressing domestic violence is complicated and it’s going to take more than a shelter. The problem requires education and a commitment to reverse this deadly trend.

The problem is also legal. One in three Indian women are raped. One in three. That constitutes an emergency. It would immediately be addressed if it were happening to any other racial group. Indian women are given third world status in terms of being treated with respect and dignity. Indian people are the most physically assaulted racial group in the United States. More specifically, the most physically assaulted race of people assailed by other races. Accordingly, other races beat up Indian people in far greater numbers than any other racial group. Rape and murder falls under the seven major crimes Indian courts cannot prosecute. More importantly Indian courts cannot try non-Indians for crimes against their own people. And the bad guys know this.

The article says a lot more. Pretty intense. Remember this is a commentary, so you may not agree with everything, I don't necessarily, but it is an issue not talked about.

Hmm.

"Today we have in our midst a number of aspiring commanding officers who will in the course of the year be appointed to command our navy ships," he said on Wednesday at the start of the first women's conference in the navy's 83-year history.

"I will refuse the creation of artificial boundaries that seek to delay the participation of women... I want to say to the women: this is your time, so seize the opportunity."

Wow. What is the catch here? He is also creating women's focus groups to support the proper entry and sustainability of women in these positions.

[H]e cautioned against complacency and urged those present to focus on education, training and professional development of women in both rural and urban settings.

"This means facilitating the access of women into careers traditionally held by men, such as engineering, actuarial science and information technology."

It is kinda like that double edged sword. One of the first places we see the benefits of affirmative action is in the military and young, predominantly black and latino kids being shipped of to war, mainly because that is their only choice. On the other hand, this dude sounds legit. Is this equality or just inclusion by necessity?

Cause I know you can’t get enough...

Stone Court has Harriet Miers and Abortion, Part III;

The New Republic tells us What Google Knows About Harriet Miers;

and The New York Times explains why conservatives think Harriet is icky.

Think Progress has a great post on gender stereotyping in the media, where they compare media coverage of Roberts to Miers. Terrific (though annoying) stuff.

Check out this snippet and you’ll get the point:

ROBERTS: “Brilliant but self-deprecating, earnest but not humorless.” (Boston Globe, 7/21/04)

MIERS: “She never misses a birthday.” (LA Times, 10/4/05)

ROBERTS: “Exceptional intellect. Exceptional temperament. A conservative judicial philosophy.” (LA Times, 7/25/05)

MIERS: “She makes a wonderful sweet potato pie. Many marshmallows.” (AP, 10/3/05)

What this "Science, Technology, Physics and Space News" service knows?

That taller women are more ambitious.

Sorry I had to, it was too funny not to.

I know the whole raunch-culture stuff has been talked about a million times over, but I needed to point out this article.

Kara Jesella at Alternet writes about Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs and does a superb job of breaking down some of the book’s problematic arguments. (She certainly voices my concerns much better than I managed to.)

Make sure to read the whole thing, but if you’re going to be lazy about it at least check out this part:

In other words, raunch culture isn't all about fake boobs, and the women who embrace it aren't all FCPs [Female Chauvinist Pigs]. Purchasing the Aerosmith DVD with all three Alicia Silverstone videos on it (which I did) or being the pleased recipient of an old copy of Playboy as a Christmas gift (that was me, too) might not be, to use a word that Levy and the FCPs both love, "empowering," but that doesn't mean I'm disempowered. Participating in raunch culture may not always be a feminist act, but that doesn't make those engaging in it antifeminists -- or deluded. I'm thinking of the happily paired lesbian couple I went to a pro-choice march with who went to a strip club on a recent birthday. Or the feminist labor activist friend who finds Brazilian bikini waxes sexy. Levy rails against a culture in which "the only alternative to enjoying Playboy is being 'uncomfortable' with or 'embarrassed' about your sexuality." But I know lots of women for whom there is a middle ground between rabid antiporn Dworkinizing and Girls Gone Wild vapidity. There are plenty of us who have put together our sexual identities from bits and pieces of our personal histories, our pop culture experiences, our love of certain parts of raunch culture that don't feel oppressive.

Seriously, read the whole thing. Jesella even manages to mention Judith Butler; I’m impressed.

Lord knows I’ve never been a fan of faux-feminist (oh sorry, I mean “ifeminist”) Wendy McElroy. But her latest column for Fox News takes the big fat racist cake.

A White Oppressor? Who Me? is a self-involved diatribe in which McElroy essentially argues white privilege (which she has no real concept of at all) doesn’t exist because she has black relatives by marriage and none of her ancestors owned slaves. Uh huh.

McElroy uses a recent Women’s Studies conference as the jumping off point for her bullshit argument. The Women’s Studies department at Northeastern University held a conference, “Breaking Bread: Women of Color Dialogue” that was meant to be a safe space for women of color, and white women were asked not to attend. But because of student government rules prohibiting racial discrimination, anyone was allowed to attend.

Dr. Robin Chandler, the director of women's studies said, “I think it's a shame that one or two white students based on white privilege, a lack of awareness of racial issues and a lack of generosity of spirit complained to the office of the provost and were able, because they were white, to gain admission to the morning session that I was forced to open up.”

McElroy completely misses the point and ironically makes the notion of white privilege all about herself:

Finally.

Beyoncé talks about how she has “grown up” in the November issue of Vanity Fair, but I’m not sure I like her idea of being an adult:

Having Jay in her life has changed a few of her attitudes about how men and women relate to one another too, she said, which helped her transition from writing songs like "Independent Women" and "Survivor" to man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U," in which she sings about bringing him slippers and drawing his bath.

Excuse me while I throw up in my coffee. Sounds like Beyoncé has been taking music video tips from a 50s home mag.

From MTV via Gawker.

I love these studies.

According to new research by San Diego State University, “young women are taking the lead in dismantling sexual taboos.” Sweet.

Researchers analyzed fifty years worth of sex surveys and found that the percentage of young women who approved of premarital sex increased from 12 percent to 73 percent, compared to younger men, whose approval of sex before marriage went from 40 percent to 79 percent.

Young women defined as "sexually active" increased from 13 percent to 47 percent during the same period, and the age for first experiencing sexual intercourse dropped from 19 to 15.

"The change in young women's beliefs about premarital sex was enormous," the study's co-author, Jean Twenge, said yesterday.

(Tell that to the virginity pledgers/sodomites.)

And of course you can't have a study on sex and young people without a mention of oral sex:

...The study also found that acceptance of oral sex had shown a strong increase.

Between 1969 and 1993, men engaging in oral sex grew from 48 percent to 72 percent, while women climbed from 42 percent to 71 percent.

"In previous generations, oral sex was considered disgusting," said Twenge, a psychology professor.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers is personally opposed to abortion, her longtime companion said Tuesday, but he added that doesn't mean she will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Nathan L. Hecht, a Texas Supreme Court justice, has been a close companion of Miers since they first worked together for a Dallas law firm 30 years ago. His comments are the clearest indication to date of Miers' view on abortion — which, as with other issues she would be likely to face on the high court, is unknown.

Hecht is known as the most conservative member of the conservative Texas Supreme Court. "He's sort of the [Antonin] Scalia of that court: smart, aggressive and very conservative," said University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock.

Hecht, a vocal opponent of the abortion right, said in an interview Tuesday that Miers shared his views. The two attend the evangelical Valley View Christian Church near Dallas.

"Harriet goes to a church that is pro-life. She has for 25 years," he said. "She gives them a lot of money. Her personal views lie in that direction."

If you’re in New York this week, get your ass to the launch of the Girlfriend/Boyfriend Board of the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

The Girls Club, which provides after school programming to
economically disadvantaged girls who live on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan, runs cutting edge programs that (while fun) are geared toward giving girls skills and experience in a wide range of fields.

Check out their mission:

The Lower Eastside Girls Club is dedicated to providing a place where girls 8-18 can grow, learn, have fun, and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world. By delivering strong and innovative arts, athletic, cultural, life-skills and career oriented programming, we provide girls with the vision to plan - and the tools to build - their future.

This is a really amazing organization; so if you’re in NY, please let everyone you know about this event.

Here’s the invite; it’s happening this Thursday to celebrate the launch of the Girlfriend/Boyfriend Board. The Girls Club is looking for young New Yorkers to sing the praises of the organization and show up to a fundraising party once a month. Not such a huge commitment for such a great place.

So pretty please check it out. If you’re not in New York, you can always throw some cash their way for all of the amazing work that they do. Just a suggestion...

While the House reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act last week, the Senate has yet to do the same.

VAWA expired on Friday. And although victims probably won't experience a gap in services or funding, the expiration sends a pretty strong message about Congress' commitment to ending violence against women.

Now's the time to write your Senators and ask them to get moving on this imporant legislation.

Also, (warning: shameless self-promotion) check out a piece I wrote about the slew of amendments that were tacked on to the House version of VAWA.

Bush wasn’t exactly forthcoming during today’s White House press conference--he refused to say whether Harriet Miers would uphold women’s right to choose. He also wouldn’t say whether he had ever discussed abortion with Miers, despite the fact that she’s worked with him for more than a decade.

While she lacks a nice easy paper trail, word is that Miers is a well-known opponent of choice. Once I start hearing words like “born again” I get scared.

Stone Court offers some new info in Harriet Miers and Abortion, Part II;

Media Girl points to a Dallas Morning News story that says Miers opposed choice while running for City Council in 1989;

and ProLifeBlogs says that Miers Views on Abortion are 'Consistent with that of Evangelical Christians'

Yikes.

Wow. The Booman Tribune reports that Republicans in Indiana are drafting legislation that would make marriage a requirement for motherhood and would include criminal penalties for unmarried women who become pregnant. I’ll just let that sink in a sec.

According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court.

Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis, tried her best to not come across as a disgusting bigot (but fails miserably):

“We’re not trying to stop people from having kids; we’re just trying to find some guidelines,” she said.

She did concede it would stop single people from using methods other than sexual intercourse but said “all the studies indicate the best environment for a child is to have a two-parent family – a mother and a father.”

I’m speechless.

Via What She Said.

Weird stuff--never would have expected this in Seattle of all places.

Strippers who venture too near the laps of their dollar-bill-waving patrons have exposed an unexpected prudish streak in this West Coast bastion of tolerance and liberalism.

Fearing a spate of new cabarets after a federal judge struck down the city's 17-year moratorium on new strip clubs, the City Council is planning to vote Monday on some of the strictest adult-entertainment regulations of any big city in the country.

No lap dances. No placing dollar bills in a dancer's G-string. And the clubs must have what one council member likens to "Fred Meyer" lighting, a reference to the department store chain.

"It's wiping out an entire industry in Seattle," said Gilbert Levy, a lawyer for Rick's gentleman's club.

The New York Times has an article today on the decreasing stigma against divorce in China, and how young women are leading the way. What’s interesting about the piece is that while it targets women as the reason the divorce rate is going up, it seems that the “blame” for divorce is heading that way as well--despite the fact that many women are getting divorced because of husbands’ infidelity.

In this lush, affluent region where adultery is so ingrained that wealthy businessmen keep their lovers in "concubine villages," infidelity is often tolerated in a marriage. But Cai Shaohong could not put up with it.

So against the advice of her parents, Ms. Cai, 29, decided in June to leave her husband. Five years of marriage dissolved after 30 minutes of paperwork. She celebrated at a teahouse with friends. By August, Ms. Cai was advising a friend who had also decided to end her marriage with an unfaithful spouse.

"Several of my friends have gotten divorced," Ms. Cai said this week during a break at her office, explaining how things are changing here. "My friends think divorce is normal, not an unthinkable thing."

Divorce was once a dreaded fate for women in China. Now, many younger urban women like Ms. Cai view it almost as a civil right, which has helped drive up divorce rates. One government study found that women had initiated 70 percent of divorce applications here in Guangdong Province, where the number of divorces increased by 52 percent last year.

..."In the past, traditional values were the most important thing," said Yuan Rongqin, a psychotherapist in Guangzhou who treats a growing number of people for marriage- and divorce-related problems. "Now, individualism has taken over."

Reuters: Key Facts on Harriet Miers

Village Voice: What's the Deal With Harriet Miers?

Associated Press: Miers Led Bid to Revisit Abortion Stance

The Nation: Harriet Miers: Supreme Court Choice With Few Footprints

Bloomberg: Miers, Bush's Lawyer, Selected for U.S. Supreme Court

The New York Times: Nominee Known for Working Hard Away From Spotlight

Some parents in South Dakota are less than pleased about the middle school sex ed textbooks. Because they contain--brace yourselves--pictures of naked people!

Some parents say new teaching manuals used at middle schools in Sioux Falls are too graphic and include information that's inappropriate for that age group.

"There's some drawings of the whole entire frontal of the male," said Karla Wornson, who is home schooling her middle school daughter but has sons who attend public high school. "My 12-year-old daughter would probably crawl under the desk."

Stella McCartney in New York displays fall’s newest look: hunger-fabulous.

Un-fucking-believable.

Via Gawker.

A bevy of folks respond to the recent NY Times article that says really smart girls would “opt out” to be moms: Katha Pollitt at The Nation; Jack Shafer at Slate; Linda Basch, Ilene Lang and Deborah Merrill-Sands at Alternet.

Pinko Feminist Hellcat takes on those “pseudo-sex positive people who claim that sexual harassment is overblown.”

Feministe reveals more about the Suicide Girls.

Stone Court gives a tidbit on Harriet Miers and abortion.

In the tradition of I’m Not Sorry, IGotAGirl tells the story of her abortion.

Completely unrelated to anything important: Ray proves that appropriate birthday attire must include a sparkly tiara and shrubbery.

A local government in Nigeria is organizing a “virginity competition” for women in secondary school--any girl who is found to be a virgin will get a cash prize. Oh. My. God.

The Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Migration and Humanitarian Affairs, Mrs. Moremi Soyinka-Onijala, who disclosed this at the weekend, explained that the test was being put in place to discourage indiscriminate sex among female students. Speaking at a rally organised by Odogbolu Local Government for Governor Gbenga Daniel’s second term bid, Mrs. Soyinka-Onijala noted that female students who could boast of their virginity would apply. “The intention is to encourage the youth to zip-up, concentrate on their studies and entrench moral values in the society because they are the leaders of tomorrow.”

According to her, participants must be senior secondary school female students from Leguru community, comprising nine wards, based on voluntary submission to designated health centres in the area. The competition, she added, would be thrown open for one year, adding that successful candidates would be made to go through virginity test before they could win the gift.

Do I get a car if I can prove I’ve never had oral?

Local women’s organizations are speaking out against this nonsense, noting that combatting sexual promiscuity and the spread of disease shouldn’t just focus on women:

Why should the young girls in Leguru (which comprises nine wards) be subjected to such physical and psychological violence under the guise of discouraging sexual promiscuity among Nigerian youths? Sexual promiscuity amongst youths in particular, and in the society in general is not caused by women/young girls only. So why should they be targeted for dealing with the issue? Why are the young boys been left out?

From The New York Times:

President Bush nominated Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, as his choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor this morning, his second nominee for the Supreme Court in the past two and half months.

Ms. Miers, 60, a longtime confidant of the president's, has never been a judge, and therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are not clear.

So no clear record and she's a "confidant" of Bush...excuse me if I'm a little wary.

They wear the long skirts and head coverings of modest Muslim women, but their draped robes are camouflage khaki and their scarves the distinctive lime green colour of the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.

Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel. The women's wing has not claimed responsibility for any attacks but in training exercises recorded by Hamas, members are seen learning to operate the unwieldy Qassam rockets. The group unleashed dozens last week, inflicting shrapnel wounds on several Israelis in towns bordering the Gaza Strip.

I have many no comments on this. I want to know what you think.

via Ms. Magazine...

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act programs through fiscal year 2009. The legislation increased funding for new rape crisis centers and increased grant money to organizations working on domestic violence issues.

That is cool, but this is not so hotso.

However, an amendment to the legislation, sponsored by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), was passed and undermines VAWA’s authority to create programs for women of color and immigrants.

On the floor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the amendment would shortchange domestic violence prevention and treatment services that target women of color and immigrant victims of domestic violence.

Meh. That is annoying.

Women frustrated by sexual harassment in workplace and lack of resources to actually do something about it.

via Newindpress...

Sexual harassment at work places is not uncommon. But the complaint redress mechanism does not operate in many places, including Government offices and private firms.

Enquiries by this website’s newspaper reporters brought to light the various forms of harassment suffered by women employees at their workstations.

As these women continue to get harassed, some of them never report because they are afraid their husbands will freak out. The head of the Tirunelveli All Woman Police Station has said that not a single report had been filed.

Many women in other sectors of work such as farming and construction are even further harassed.

For instance in the construction industry women failing to yield to the contractors’ sexual needs will not be offered work the next day, said Manimekalai, Director of the Centre.

“A section of the sample women, from the survey area, revealed that the money lenders had even tried to exploit their daughters,” Manimekalai said.

via BBC...

Nineteen women who detectives believe were tricked into working as sex slaves have been removed from a massage parlour in Birmingham.
The women, aged between 19 and 30, were led from Cuddles on Hagley Road on Thursday evening by a special task force of about 25 female officers.

The women are said to come from Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Poland and Turkey.

A recent study has apparently found that women and men have a different sense of humor:

"While men prefer gags with a punch line, women laugh at stories that relate to their everyday lives, according to the report.

Male humour is based on competition and impressing those around them, whereas women use jokes to achieve intimacy and to make people feel at ease."

Because we're nuturers in everything we do!

Diana Coulson, the director of JWT (the global advertising agency that conducted the study), said us lasses "can find humour in a household chore," while "Men use humour in a much more competitive way."

Can I fucking puke now?